Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
“Are you having a hard time?”
“Who isn’t?”
Netflix thriller ‘Wall to Wall’ is the kind of film that makes it very evident from that its protagonist is doomed. A middle-class worker, he’s crushed from all sides, spiraling deeper into debt as he falls for one capitalistic trap after another, the biggest one being his Seoul flat filled with nutcase neighbors harassing him with noise complaints. The premise sort of reminded me of the Korean webtoon “Hell is Other People”, except this one is nowhere near as entertaining or creepy.
Directed by Kim Tae-joon, Sharon S. Park, ‘Wall to Wall’ (Korean title: 84 Jegopmiteo) follows office worker Woo-seong (Kang Ha-neul), who pours all his resources to buy himself a flat in Seoul, but soon, the loan installments become bigger than what he makes in a month. As he sweats through two jobs to make ends meet, he is unable to sleep a wink due to noise seeping through the walls in his apartment. Things only take a more nightmarish turn when everybody in the building starts to blame him for noise pollution, a conflict that spirals out of control.
The opening seconds of ‘Wall to Wall’ immediately feel oppressive, kicking off with a montage of towering concrete apartments, all scarily similar, impersonal, and almost spooky. They represent the trappings of modern city life: a sea of humanity boxed together in apartments, mostly the aspirational middle class, going through the motions of work-slog-sleep-repeat. Woo-seong gives up all his savings to become a proud homeowner, but all of that elation washes away when the reality of loans becomes too heavy to bear, and he becomes what a colleague calls him: “house poor.” The film also subtly weaves in a ‘renters versus owners’ theme, highlighting how snobby homeowners look down on renters, a dynamic that will resonate with many viewers.
Well, after about the first half hour of ‘Wall to Wall’, the film becomes slightly insufferable, just like Woo-seong’s life becomes unbearably crazy. He is drowning in debt, his two jobs are soul-crushing, his neighbors are insane, and his colleague lures him into crypto trading with the promise of 800% returns based on “insider tips.” But you know in your gut nothing is probably going to work out for him. Kang Ha-neul is an excellent in his portrayal of the desperate Woo-seong, but the character is rarely likable or the sorts you’d want to cheer for.
Maybe I am not a fan of protagonists who dig their own graves, and definitely not a fan of the cliched modern trope of phone batteries dying on the one day your life depends on it. It’s not as if Woo-seong is lost in the forest, or lives with anybody who’d unplug him phone from charging and put their own phone instead. The twists feel far too contrived, annoying, and I simply wanted to give up after the first one hour of ‘Wall to Wall’. Some of the bizarre neighbor behavior is explained in the latter half of ‘Wall to Wall’, but even then, the turn of event don’t feel satisfactory. Instead, a lot of the stuff feels gimmicky.
If you are a patient viewer, stick around until the end, and you might appreciate the twists. I didn’t and this was definitely not for me. Bad movies ruin my day and after feeling like I lost precious time on this flick, I sure as hell do not feel like spending more time trying to sound critically objective in the review.
Rating: 4 on 10. Watch ‘Wall to Wall’ on Netflix.
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