Critic Reviews

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

A little more venom or bite might have been welcome but this is still an entertaining skewering of celebrity and the way a single day can flip from triumph to outright disaster

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.

Contrary to the setup’s illusions, Brühl distances and thus absolves himself by making Daniel a nasty caricature–arrogant, speaking in brooding actorly tones, eager to pose for selfies and flirt with fans. Had he played it straight, Next Door might just have been vital.

Spry enough to sustain its wisp of an idea but too contained in both story and setting to resonate beyond its most basic thrills, Next Door is a pleasantly unfulfilled promise of a debut.

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

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

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

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