**SPOILERS** Interesting little movie about a mental breakdown that's caused by a combination of a noisy neighbor and a deep guilt-complex on the part of young Joyce Chandler, Trish Goff.
Moving into a Manhattan apartment house Joyce is about to start a new life after she broke up with her boyfriend Elliot, David Thornton. Joyce also gets a job with Gothom Press as a proof reader. The first night in her apartment Joyce is tormented with load noise coming from her upstairs neighbor.
The noise ,that continues for a couple of nights, is so nerve wracking that Joyce not only slips a note under the neighbor's door telling her to quite down but also calls the police for help. The neighbor Charlotte Bancroft, Ally Sheely, later knocks on Joyce's door and apologizes for her keeping her awake with her music and then invite her up for tea and cookies which Joyce declines.
At first you think that Charlotte is trying to make up with Joyce over what happened but later she's back again with the stomping and what sounds like military marching music that drives Joyce to the point where she begins to drink herself drunk. The drinking leads Joyce to fall apart on her job and is finally let go by her boss Margret, Jodie Markell, after she gave her a week off without pay in order to get herself together. Joyce's only hope is to get back with Elliot who's in Boston. When she calls him for help Joyce finds that he's living with another woman! This makes her depression get that much more severe. It's also found out through Joyce's talk with Elliot that she had an abortion which she can't face up to and is a major reason for her, what later turns out to be, self-loathing.
You start to realize that Joyce's problems are a lot more serious then the noise from upstairs but it's her focus on Charlotte that makes her forget the other far more crippling psychosis' she's suffering from. Talking it over with her neighbor Hank, Giancorlo Esposito, about what to do with Charlotte. Hank tells Joyce to secretly put her, Charlotte's, name in the local newspaper personal page and have those who answer it pay her a visit and maybe with a little luck she'll find the right person, for Joyce, who'll shut her up for good. Doing what Hank told her Joyce gets more then she bargained for in getting Charlotte the right person who ends up breaking her jaw and putting her in the hospital.
The movie begins to swing away from Charlotte and concentrates on Joyce as the really sick person who's in need of help with her drinking as well as picking up a stranger the creepy Larry ,Dov Davidoff, at the local bar. Not that Charlotte hasn't any serious problems herself she seems to suffer for a very deep sense of rejection and it was Joyce's rejection of her that set her off. That rejection had Charlotte go out of her way to destroy Joyce both financially and emotionally as well.
Charlotte recovering from a severe beating that she suffered from one of her man answering the personal add has Joyce over at her apartment for what at first seems like a friendly talk. The talk quickly escalates into a vicious brow beating of Joyce that leads to something that Charlotte never expected. That's what in he end frees Joyce from the control Charlotte had over her forever.
