Teringer An Exercise In Nonsense

DipitySkillful an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Skyler Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Maggot-6 Presently it's late January 2009. Though I enjoyed "Noise" extremely, I was so impressed throughout -even distracted- by the way it evoked my recollection of "Crash". That "Crash" (by Haggis) released in the US in '05, (and not the '96 one by Cronenberg). I've not found any mention of any perceived relationship, derivative similarity of voice or plot, between these 2 nearly simultaneous films in any online review or comment I perused neither here nor off-site. My mild surprise has further intrigued me and motivated me to post this. Perhaps many more Yanks will see it now that it has had such a broad exposure via Sundance - yet I wonder if anyone other than plain 'ol ME has had the same thought. You have? Then please do post that up. Thanks.

nycmode75 Before I go any further, I'd like to point out that I once had a neighbor who lived next door that nearly drove me mad (much like the Joyce, the lead character, in the film). So with that context in mind, I was intrigued by the premise of this film.So the film kicks off with Joyce, in a nutshell, looking for some peace and quiet following some great turmoil in her life. Fast forward (because you won't miss anything) a bit and you eventually see Joyce run into Charlotte, her upstairs neighbor that has a propensity for making loud noises late at night and early in the morning...forcing Joyce to lose some much needed sleep, and at times, her sanity.Not to give away too much, but the rest of the film is about her conflict with Charlotte, and eventually, finding a final solution to her ongoing problems.The premise of the film is interesting, and many people (like myself in NYC or other cities) can relate to being driven mad by bad neighbors. However, the script moves at a snail's pace. It's not that I can't enjoy slow films, but the resolution of each new element of drama often is left unresolved, or is unsatisfying given the amount of patience we need to reach it. One example - Joyce inexplicably has sexual encounters with random men, or kisses a good friend out of nowhere. But none of this leads has any relevance to her conflict with Charlotte.Throughout the movie, we see her lose more sleep, drink more and more, and have hallucinations. But because of a meandering script and terrible character development (we know Joyce is miserable, but does she HAVE to be miserable every time we see her?) - in the end you really don't CARE if she's suffering or not. By the end, I really couldn't care if Joyce died, Charlotte died, or both killed each other in a pool of blood. I give the actors credit for dealing with a screenplay that's all over the place, but in the end, you just don't really care about what happens - especially if the cute lead actress spends the whole movie looking angry, tired (or a combination of both).It's a shame because the movie had a good premise and a lot of potential.

sacusanov I have a hard time with movies about annoying people, and a hard time with movies about inept people, but put together -- and this movie does that in spades -- it's just painful to watch. Any person with any idea of how to deal with the world will want to scream. On top of that is the whole the decent into madness thing, which only works in the hands of geniuses and campy hacks. Imagine Planes, Trains and Automobiles crossed with Repulsion, all done on such a limited budget that it seems like every take must have been the last one of a grueling 20 hour day in which the actors weren't able to consume anything more than coffee and jujubes. There, now you don't have to see it.

Mr__Underhill Noise boasts, among other things, being in the vein of the Roman Polansky film, The Tennant. My advice is see the Tennant, which is one of the more creepy and trippy psychological dramas you will find. Noise, on the other hand, doesn't know what it wants to be. It falls short of trippiness by sticking to a plot that has few delusions. The ridiculous events of the film really do happen. The characters (especially the most annoying Alley Sheedy) are not believable. The irritability of the "neigbor upstairs" is more like the antics of the old woman from the even more pathetic film Duplex. What you get is an attempt at a funny film that isn't funny. It strives to be Duplex which itself was just annoying. Yet the ridiculousness takes away from the lame attempt at being creepy.