Next Door

Actor Daniel Brühl makes his directorial debut with this delightfully taut, blackly comic satire.

Unlike Malcom & Marie, Daniel Brühl’s feature-length directorial debut proves to be authentically self-castigating.

An amusing, accomplished debut on its own modest terms, Next Door works best as tart meta comedy, becoming increasingly cramped in scope and setting as it spirals into an obsessive revenge thriller.

The film’s games of genre-shuffling and celebrity self-satire can’t override the essential tedium of its core conflict.

Brühl works confidently as a director and star, however, hopefully with the potential to be a little more ambitious in the future.

Though Brühl is an affable and witty screen presence, there’s no getting round the fact that the film is a vanity project.

It’s not a vanity project (Brühl does not seem in the least vain) but an actor’s project, nonetheless.