Next door

I did not know anything about this movie when I watched it on Netflix.

I suggest you dive right in.

This movie , directed and starring Daniel Brühl, with Peter Kurth as "the other guy" centers around an actor named Daniel who just wants to read the only page of a script he got for an audition, hence entering a pub for a coffee before taking his flight.

What unfolds is one of the best German movies I have seen in a long time.

Despite rarely leaving the premises, and playing in real time, this is veritable seat glue with brilliant dialogue and hard to guess twists and turns in the story.

Daniel Brühl got Daniel Kehlmann as the writer, who is also a novelist, and it shows in every detail.

Add to this a beautiful and effective cinematography and rare but masterful score/songs and we have ourselves a movie that will be shown in film making classes.

One can learn so much watching it.

I don't understand how this is not even rated a 7.0 on imdb.

You certainly won't be disappointed even when you go in with high expectations.

Well done, Daniel. Please make more movies. You are Germany's best talent.

Berlin - a city that still has its issues with its past. And while it states here that it is a comedy - I'd call that a bit of a far stretch. I'd call it a drama - with quite bit of comedic touches. Some may even feel this is a thriller. The way the trailer is cut certainly gives that impression (thankfully I only saw that after I had seen the movie).

Daniel Brühl can not only draw from his experience as an actor (the role he is offered may or may not be a wink at his Marvel role), but also his spanish roots - from one of his parents side that is. We knew that he is a great actor, but with this he seems to establish himself as a really good director as well. He certainly had a quite the tight script to work with - which always helps.

How good do we know our neighbors or anyone in close proximity to us? This has some bits of a spanish thriller I've seen, where misery played a big role. But it is not a remake of that, it has quite a few other elements in it. It is about fame, about relationships and more importantly about trust. Also it deals with the Stasi in a really clever way. Highly recommended, even if there may be times where it seems to come to a full stop .. a new revelation/twist will keep you on the edge of your seat ...

This was wonderful. Gradually growing tension, garnished with comic touches, and played to perfection by the two male leads.

A smooth and successful young actor is to fly from his Berlin home to Britain to audition for a superhero movie. His only frustration at that point is getting hold of the script. His taxi to the airport arrives too soon, so he sends it off and thinks to fill in time with a drink at the local bar. There he encounters another inhabitant of his block of flats. He treats their discussion with tactful reserve, as a fleeting encounter with an unimportant man. But the conversation proves quite sticky. His frustrations grow, tension deepens.

Almost the entire film takes place in the bar, giving it the feel of a stage play. And almost all the dialogue is between the two men, though there are important scenes involving his wife and the woman who owns the bar.

The backdrop is gentrification, with the two protagonists representing a clash between the old and the new. Looming over all is the shadow of the past: the Stalinist regime in Eastern Germany.

I would be happy to watch this again.

While the main trailer for this film was quite impressive and promising, I must admit that the movie loses it's freshness due to the postmodern features.

And with that I principally mean the normalization of frighteningly strange story points. With that I mean the lack of an accurate representation on how someone normal would react to the things going on.

Daniel Brühl is brilliant, as he should be, but his character and the others do not react normally. This gives the movie an bizarre feeling. Because the sense of being appalled is not properly shown.

From a filmmaking point of view this film is solid, but it just fails because of postmodernism.

All I knew was that the movie would play in a corner bar in Berlin for most of the time. Therefore, I didn't expect much suspense but was proven wrong very quickly. It has amazingly written dialogues, superb acting by both lead actors and thus, doesn't get boring for even a split second.

I observed myself rooting for both lead characters in turns. Also, it gives you a lot to think about: Stasi, gentrification, envy, the value of money and fame.

The fact that Daniel Brühl plays a character seemingly close to himself (actor, german-spanish, two sons, superhero roles in the making) made it only better.