Good Neighbours

A seriously oddball little movie, Good Neighbours follows three tenants (Jay Baruchel’s Victor, Scott Speedman’s Spencer, and Emily Hampshire’s Louise) of a Montreal-based apartment building as they weave in and out of one another’s lives – with complications ensuing as it becomes increasingly clear that each person has a secret or two that needs to stay buried. Though it eventually begins to go in progressively strange directions, Good Neighbours starts out as a fairly conventional drama concerning young adults and their interrelationships – with the affable performances certainly ensuring that the movie fares best in its early scenes. It’s the likeable nature of the three central characters that effectively sustains the viewer’s interest even as the narrative takes turns of a decidedly inexplicable nature, as filmmaker Jacob Tierney infuses each of the movie’s protagonists with bizarre and downright off-the-wall attributes (eg Louise’s far-from-healthy fixation on Victor’s imported cat). By the time the film takes an almost astonishingly brutal turn, Good Neighbours has certainly established itself as a thoroughly unpredictable piece of work that is often more enthralling on a scene-by-scene basis than as a cohesive whole (yet there’s little doubt that the movie stands as a tremendous improvement over Tierney’s unwatchable debut, 2003’s Twist).

**1/2 out of ****