Movie Review: One Floor Below

By Sachin Hingoo

The most cursory viewing of Radu Muntean’s One Floor Below reveals a very banal, uninteresting portrayal of a man who does nothing, and frankly, that’s the point. Examining the Romanian thriller beneath the surface, however, provokes some hard questions about what it means to exist in society and the responsibility we have to each other in times of tragedy and danger.

Sandu (Teodor Corban) is a family man who runs a car registration business with Olga (Oxana Moravec), his wife. One day, he overhears a heated argument between his downstairs neighbor, Laura (Maria Popistasu), and a fellow tenant–the film’s understated antagonist–named Vali (Iulian Postelnicu). The assumption is that the married Vali is having an affair with Laura, and Sandu catches him leaving Laura’s apartment after the violent exchange. The following day, Laura is dead, found apparently murdered and when the police question Sandu, he neglects to mention the argument with Vali. Soon after, Vali begins to slyly and smugly insinuate himself into Sandu’s life, helping his son Matei (Ionut Bora) set up his Xbox and requesting Sandu’s help with his car registration. All the while, the tension of having Vali around simmers as Sandu fights his prior instinct to remain quiet and his own breaking point.

The movie is explicitly asking us to separate Sandu’s character from his (lack of) action and makes it fairly clear that his omission is an isolated incident. In one of the most interesting scenes in One Floor Below, Sandu stands up for Laura in her absence when his misogynist buddies make thoughtless, disgusting comments about her. This sort of scene is just one way the film takes great pains to give Sandu a truly three-dimensional portrayal that consistently shows him being a genuinely good dude. He’s liked by nearly everyone, is good at his work, and is a very patient and attentive dad. He’s even got a pretty cool dog named Jerry, and the movie even pauses for a minute for a dog show scene with Sandu and his son. (Aside: Why doesn’t every movie do this? I really feel like Mad Max would’ve been improved with a mostly non-sequitur parade of cocker spaniels).

Something ominous runs underneath every scene in One Floor Below, making it one of the more interesting thrillers I’ve seen in awhile. I have the same feeling of tension watching it as I do when I watch a home invasion horror film like You’re Next or “life invasion” thrillers like Pacific Heights, where danger is behind every wall. The fact that the tension isn’t acknowledged aloud makes it even scarier, and this feeling is always there, carefully nurtured by Muntean’s steady hand. When Vali is on screen, especially with Sandu’s family, you share Sandu’s uneasiness about what’s going to happen next, when the other shoe will drop and when, or if, Vali will expose himself as the murderer. Innocuous discussions between Sandu and Vali about a hard drive or Matei’s Xbox take on layers of meaning with Laura’s murder hanging between them.

I think it’s a harder thing to make an effective slow-burn thriller like this than to make something more ostentatious. Muntean’s disciplined handling of tension allows him to mete out small amounts of anxiety throughout the film rather than going for a few big moments or shocks, ultimately making it a more rewarding experience for a patient viewer. The plainness of the film’s look and feel make it even more deliciously unnerving. If you’re like me and will take a thriller with a persistent, creeping dread over one with copious jump-scares ten times out of ten, you’ll be more than satisfied to go beneath the surface with One Floor Below.

One Floor Below starts a run at TIFF Bell Lightbox on January 22. You can get tickets here.