The Ones Below

CinemaSerf

This might have worked a little better had there been just a little more effort put into the characterisations. As it is, it's all a rather predictable drama that sees two couples living above each other in apartments in a converted house. Both are expecting a child, but when an accident robs one couple of that joyous event, rancour looms and the story takes a much darker turn as an unconvincing truce breaks out with a pretty obvious agenda. The story itself is all rather weakly delivered as the relationship between Clémence Poésy and Stephen Campbell Moore and their downstairs neighbours Laura Birn and the sparingly featured David Morrissey plays out in a none-too-plausible, indeed actually quite flawed, fashion. I think it might work better with the added intensity of a stage performance, but here it's a film that leaves too much to our own imagination to fill in the plentiful gaps in the underwhelming screenplay. It's just a bit too lightweight for the topic, sorry.