Starring Kang Ha-Neul, Seo Hyun-Woo, Yum Hye-Ran

Written & Directed by Kim Tae-Joon

Streaming on Netflix

A lowly office worker uses all his savings, maxing out his debt to buy an 84 square metre high-rise apartment in Seoul, only to be tormented by mysterious, intolerable noises. As he tries to find the source of the racket he finds himself drawn into a bloody conspiracy.

For various reasons I was unable to sit down to Wall to Wall in one sitting. Having to fragment a viewing is disorientating enough, but with this head-spinning film, each time I returned to my screen it was as if Netflix had programmed a prankish A.I. to change the movie’s genre. To describe Wall to Wall as tonally inconsistent barely captures its dizzying switchback qualities.

The first two acts play out as a sort of screwball social comedy, as Noh Woo-Sung (Kang Ha-Neul) a puppy-like thirtysomething on the rebound from a marriage that never happened, gathers the huge amount of cash required to buy the tiny apartment. It’s an engaging start, dramatising Woo-Sung’s rootlessness, and his belief that owning property will somehow create a financial and psychological foundation for his future. Of course all it does is make thing worse, eating up every won he earns so that he is unable to furnish his meagre 84 square metres, nor have any life not dedicated to paying off his debts.

To escape this soul-destroying Sisyphean hamster wheel, Woo-Sung decides to gamble everything on some dodgy crypto insider dealing. We know he’s doomed. We’re shouting at the TV: ‘No, you idiot, don’t do it!!!’ It’s fun stuff, although at times, it’s the kind of screwball comedy you need to watch from behind the sofa. Dovetailing this satirical japery, our hero is being driven mad by banging and hammering at all hours, making sleep impossible, and his quest to find the source of the noise takes on nightmarish, paranormal qualities.

In a third act, as the cause of Woo-Sung’s troubles starts to be explained, the gears shift again and we find ourselves in a socially conscious satirical thriller – presumably addressing the South Korean property boom zeitgeist (although left behind millennials in the UK will absolutely empathise with Woo-Sung’s predicament). Fortunately, we now feel that we can emerge from behind the sofa because he has an ally in Yeong Jin-Ho (Seo Hyun-Woo) from then apartment directly above. But just when we’re getting comfortable again, we find ourselves splattered by a bloodbath of slasher-horror proportions.

After a largely unfathomable denouement – which is something to do with corruption in the South Korean construction industry and laced with increasingly unconvincing betrayals and counter-betrayals – the final act takes the form of a gentle coda to a thoughtful morality tale, ruminating on the cult of property and its relationship to the meaning of life itself.

Verdict: There’s certainly lots to grab your attention in Wall to Wall – a bit like a fusion all-you-can-eat buffet of ideas put together by a hyper-manic chef overdosed on amphetamines. There are plenty of interesting flavours as you go along, but you are left with indigestion and still feeling a tad hungry. 6/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com