The Man in the Wall

'The Man in the Wall' is set entirely inside one apartment. It is a very claustrophobic and contained film. There are no action sequences or acts of violence. The movie relies almost entirely on dialogue and yet it still somehow managed to have me glued to the screen. Now granted, when a film has subtitles you can't really afford to look away for fear of missing something, but this was more than that. This was a very well put together film that had me eager to learn the conclusion it had in store for me.

The film is a mystery. The mystery is set up almost instantly and then the entire movie is based around solving said mystery. Each scene in the movie introduces either one or two new characters, they interact with the lead character, a couple of hours go by and then we meet the next one or two new characters. A very basic style of story-telling, but it worked. Considering there was only one setting for the entire movie there were actually a lot of characters and because the movie was told in this format it was easy to keep track of who was who and what they meant to the story.

The only real let down for me was the ending. Without giving anything way I will simply say it left me a little unfulfilled. Mainly because it deemed a lot of what we saw during the movie to be nothing more than filler. At least in terms of reaching a resolution. Each scene did have other things going for it like giving background on the main couples history for example. Also be warned: a lot of the time subtitles disappear very quickly - be prepared to read fast. 'The Man in the Wall' is a well-acted mystery film which, had it put on the icing on the cake with a great ending, could have been something very special.