“Wall to Wall” Netflix Poster
Director: Kim Tae-joon
Cast: Kang Ha-neul, Seo Hyun-woo, Yeom Hye-ran, Kim Hyun-Jung, Jeon Jin-Oh, Park Sung-Il, Yoon Jung-Il, Kim Yoon-Jin, Lee Jong-Goo, Na Ho-Sook
Running Time: 118 min.
By Paul Bramhall
Wall to Wall, or 84 Square Metres as its Korean title directly translates to, fits into that distinctly 21st century genre of homeowner anxiety. In Korea such productions usually find themselves set in one of the myriad of towering apartment complex villages, where multiple faceless residential towers provide a backdrop for everything from stalking to murder, all set within that one place we should feel the safest – home. The likes of 2013’s Hide and Seek, and 2018’s double-bill of Door Lock and The Witness, have all effectively used apartment spaces to create a sense of tension, and Wall to Wall takes a similar approach in its story of a new homeowner becoming increasingly frustrated with his neighbours.
Played by Kang Ha-neul (Yadang: The Snitch, The Pirates: The Last Royal Treasure), an effective opening plays out in montage to bring the audience up to speed on his life, the events which briefly flash up onscreen culminating with the purchase of said apartment. Now with a precious piece of Seoul real estate to call his own, it’s soon revealed it came at a cost, with the decision taken to call off his own wedding, and his loan status completely maxed out. Essentially broke, Ha-neul spends his time stealing food supplies from the office pantry to avoid buying his own, uses a camping light rather than use any electricity, and stubbornly refuses to turn on the air conditioning even at the height of summer. All of these inconveniences pale in comparison though to his biggest source of frustration – the noise from the upstairs neighbours, of which the banging and running around is almost constant.
The sophomore feature from director Kim Tae-joon after 2023’s underwhelming Unlocked, both of which he also wrote, like his debut Wall to Wall also comes courtesy of Netflix, making him the first Korean director for whom all of his work has released exclusively to the streaming giant. There’s a recurrent theme so far in the two movies he’s made, with Chun Woo-hee feeling trapped by her phone in Unlocked, and likewise Ha-neul feels like he’s trapped by his own apartment in Wall to Wall. With interest rates on the rise his repayments are becoming more and more unmanageable, to the point that he finishes his office job only to spend the evenings on his bike making food deliveries. Coming home to a flurry of Post-it notes on his door from the downstairs neighbours complaining about the noise, the case of mistaken apartment sends Ha-neul on a mission to find the real culprit, starting with the neighbour directly above.
Greeted by Seo Hyun-woo (Nocturnal, Thunderbird), his tattooed and heavily scarred character is enough to take the wind out of Ha-neul’s riled up sails, however the plot thickens when Hyun-woo also reveals he’s constantly disturbed by noise from his upstairs neighbours. The biggest issues though seems to be that any time Ha-neul brings another character into his apartment, usually in an attempt to prove he’s experiencing the same noise from upstairs as his neighbours have pinned on him, the only sound is one of silence. It’s a subtle but powerfully effective way to demonstrate that Ha-neul isn’t the most reliable of narrators, and just how much of his perspective that we watch the movie through is reflecting actual reality?
From a director standpoint sophomore features are always interesting to watch, and personally my approach to them is usually dependant on my feeling towards their debut. If it was a strong debut, are they able to build upon it for their 2nd feature (Jeong Joo-ri’s A Girl at My Door and Next Sohee being a classic example), or alternatively, if the debut wasn’t so strong, have they been able to take the learnings and apply them to make an engaging 2nd feature? I was hoping Tae-joon would fall into the latter category, and by being placed into the headspace of Ha-neul through the constant sound of footsteps overhead and his strained mental state, Wall to Wall proved he definitely had. Not that preconceptions should play any part in a review, but I’d initially been worried it was going to be another tale of greedy homeowners preying on the poor, which we’ve seen far too much of from Korean cinema in recent years.
Instead we’re thrust into Han-neul’s world as his enquiries see him navigate the apartment hierarchy. Coming into contact with the Resident Representative and penthouse owner, played by Yeom Hye-ran (Cobweb, Special Delivery), she reveals that the Post-it note happy couple living under Ha-neul are only renting, and would be happy assist in ensuring they leave the complex at the end of their tenancy. It’s an interaction that raises the question of if it’s happening at all, or is what we’re seeing a reflection of what’s going on in Ha-neul’s imagination? While the latter is the far more interesting approach, unfortunately, it happens to be the former. In fact not only did the conversation actually take place, but those sounds of someone constantly stomping and banging around overhead? They all turn out to be for real as well.
So, if we’re not following a character’s descent into madness based on his perceived noisy neighbours and suffocating financial pressure that see him living more like a squatter than an apartment owner, what exactly are we left with? The answer isn’t one I expected, if only because it made me feel like I’d been gaslighting myself, but to summarise it in a nutshell – Wall to Wall isn’t a psychological thriller at all, but rather, it’s another tale of greedy homeowners preying on the poor. To say that Tae-joon’s script jumps the shark is probably an understatement, taking a sharp turn into increasingly ridiculous territory, as Ha-neul suddenly has to deal with a psychotic freelance journalist eager for content, and rich homeowners attempting to get richer through the most nefarious of means.
The comparison with Unlocked is inevitable, which similarly derailed in the latter half thanks to changes in plot direction that stretched believability, and Wall to Wall suffers from the exact same issue. If anything the issue is exasperated in this sophomore feature by the fact it requires the audience to backtrack, re-visiting certain moments that (at least in my case) felt like a certainty to be taking place in Ha-neul’s head, and accept them as reality. None of it works. By the time it reaches its stab happy finale, the promise of the claustrophobic first half feels completely squandered, instead relying on familiar tropes that we’ve seen plenty of times before.
As a director and screenwriter Tae-joon makes for a frustrating proposition. Both of the movies he’s helmed come with a unique angle that’s initially executed with plenty of promise, before devolving into overly familiar genre tropes that fail to convince. As the audience there’s a certain level of infuriation seeing ideas which start off strong, only for them to take a nosedive once you’re already too far in to go back. Compared to those movies which are clearly not going to be worth your time from the first 15 minutes, allowing you clock out early, it’s a different feeling all together if you come to the same realisation only when the end credits are rolling after almost 2 hours.
With that said, for anyone who’s lived (or does live for that matter!) in an apartment complex, there’ll be certain moments in Wall to Wall that feel relatable, essentially taking some of the minor inconveniences communal living can come with and magnifying them to insufferable levels. Out of all the entries in the homeowner anxiety genre, it’s still Hong Kong’s Dream Home from 2010 that feels like it towers about the rest, committing to its concept with joyful abandon that still allows it to feel relevant 15 years after its release. As for if anyone will still be talking about Wall to Wall 15 years later, I doubt anyone will be talking about it just a few weeks after its release.
Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 5/10
