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Movies & TV Movies & TV Reviews

Good Neighbours

GOOD NEIGHBOURS (Jacob Tierney). 98 minutes. Opens Friday (June 3). See listing Rating: NNN


The residents of Jacob Tierney’s Good Neighbours are hard to swallow and impossible to like, yet still very amusing to watch. Like those who populated the director’s last film, The Trotsky, these folks live in an insular world, a Montreal apartment complex to be exact, where everyone is intelligent but rather peculiar, and perfectly of a piece with Tierney’s twisted story.

Emily Hampshire stars as Louise, a standoffish cat lover who’s obsessed with a local serial killer. She frequently has dinner with Spencer (Scott Speedman), a wheelchair-bound smartass with a sinister grin. Their routine is disrupted by Victor (Jay Baruchel), the desperate new guy in the building who falls hard for Louise. As one might suspect, the murders continue and the apartment dwellers suspect the murderer is among them.

Tierney and Baruchel are among the few local players who are out to prove that Canada can have its own mainstream cinema, and Good Neighbours is a step in the right direction its laughs and hijinks feel like they came from home.

The awkward yet fascinating chemistry between the leads carries the movie past its sometimes silly plot turns and has far more appeal than the mystery itself. But the film’s best moment is a cameo by fellow Montrealer Xavier Dolan, who graciously pokes fun at those blasted Buddy Holly glasses he never takes off.

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