4PM

Story: Jeong-in (Oh Dal-soo) is a professor and decides to take a sabbatical. With his wife Hyeon-sook (Jang Young-nam) he bought a house outside the city, where the two want to relax for a year. After settling in, they decide to introduce themselves to their neighbor, a doctor, but he is not there. So, they write him a message saying that he can come over for tea at any time so that they can get to know each other. The next day, at 4 p.m. sharp, there is a knock on the door. It is their neighbor (Kim Hong-pa). He sits down and drinks tea, but he is not a good conversationalist. Jeong-in only gets monosyllabic answers out of him – if any at all. So, most of the time there is deafening silence between the couple and the neighbor, but the neighbor doesn’t show the slightest inclination to go either. It is not until exactly 6 p.m. that he finally leaves the house without a word. The couple felt like they were suffocating in that silence, but after this unpleasant meeting they will probably not see the neighbor that soon again. At least that's what they think. Because the next day, he knocks on the door again at 4 p.m. Jeong-in is confused but lets him in and they sit through another two hours of silence. When the doctor has finally left, they puzzle over what kind of man he is and what his behavior might be about. However, much more important for them is the question of whether he will turn up the next day again. Unfortunately, this is the case. The two feel terrorized, but Jeong-in is too friendly of a man not to open the door for the neighbor. That’s why the couple stays out of the house the next day, but that only makes the whole thing worse ...

Review: Even with the first appearance of the neighbor we already realize that we are getting a rather grotesque and darkish humorous thriller that always makes us ask ourselves what we would do in this kind of situation. After all, everyone knows this type of neighbor who just won't let you leave until they have told you half of their life story. While in reality most people politely but firmly make it clear at some point that they have other things to do than to take care of their neighbor's loneliness, the situation is taken to extremes in "4PM" in an absurdly comical way. The movie is based on the novel "The Stranger Next Door" by the Belgian author Amélie Nothomb. In some respects, the story should even work better than in the original, since now it takes place in Korea. That’s because at a certain point, the professor's politeness would in general probably have had to be considered quite unbelievable. However, given the Korean culture, which is keen on as little direct confrontation as possible and in which respect for the elderly is also very important, you might find the story a little more realistic. Unfortunately, there are still some problems in this respect in the further course of the story. Still, it cannot be denied that the interesting premise immediately manages to captivate us.

At first, the characters can't really win us over, though. We have the typical long-married couple who are still happy, but who have hardly anything to say to each other in everyday life, except for a few trivialities. So, at first, we are just listening to dialogues that are mainly about how beautiful it is in the new house and in nature. Things are finally slowing down, and the two even meditate together after a tea ceremony, until the neighbor knocks on the door and snaps them out of their musing, not just figuratively. From then on, everything goes downhill. The psychological terror becomes more and more tangible, but at the same time, our interest in the neighbor gradually fades away, as we realize that we won't get any profound answers. Instead, we are presented with a detailed account of the spiral of madness into which the eternally repetitive visits send the couple. There are even different phases, because at the beginning, the professor even sees it as a challenge to get more than just monosyllabic answers out of the doctor. And then the couple tries to run away from the neighbor simply by not being at home or by ignoring his knocking. It should come as no surprise that none of this works, and it even increases the mystery around the older, extremely rude man. Unfortunately, this can get quite tiring at some point.

Just when you think you are stuck in an endless loop, the neighbor's wife comes into play. But sadly, the story falls a bit short of expectations here as well. At least there are some developments towards the end that get the ball rolling again, even though the ending itself turns out somewhat disappointing. The disappointment probably stems from the fact that the story is quite predictable at its core. In addition, the whole time you expect a special twist, which constantly hangs in the air, but ultimately fails to materialize. Apparently, at least as far as quick research on the book showed, this is a problem of the original work too. The idea of being pushed to your limits because you're just too nice, the simmering danger of simply exploding, and the question of what you would then be capable of doing, all this should have been dealt with more deeply on a character level. Especially if you look at the cast, it would just have been obvious to do so. Because both Oh Dal-soo ("The Wild") and Jang Young-nam ("Firefighters") are also stage actors and - almost always being condemned to playing supporting roles - have done a great job so far, even in minor parts. You would think that they would be able to shine in a movie that mainly takes place in one location and therefore has something theatrical about it. But especially Jang has almost no scenes worth mentioning.

The focus is, of course, on the professor, as is also conveyed by the fact that we are allowed to listen to his thoughts via inner monologues. The extremely passive man, who wants to be liked by everyone, is clearly confronted with his own inner demons and has to question his entire character. But Oh Dal-soo is only allowed to show off his acting talent during some scenes towards the end. And Kim Hong-pa ("I Want to Know Your Parents") is also only allowed to show a few more nuances when the movie reaches its climax. Until then he just has to seem enigmatic and somehow frightening. Every now and then, though, we also get the impression that he is suffering or just barely suppressing his anger. As already mentioned, more could have been made out of this, and we are left with the feeling that there is too little time towards the end to deal with the actual interesting developments. The beginning and the middle take up all the space by focusing on the grueling everyday life of repetitive visits. You mainly keep watching because the fine humor that runs through everything manages to scale back the seriousness of the situation a little bit and even makes things become visibly absurd.

However, the thriller also lightens up the mood a little with a great soundtrack that comes across rather playful, assuring us that we shouldn't take things too seriously. Song Jeong-woo ("Coinroom") demonstrates a wonderful sense of creativity as a director by using some original camera angles. Since time is also an important factor of the story, and the two hours with the neighbor drag on almost endlessly, it is of course also necessary to convey this visually. And so, the camera sometimes starts rotating like the hand of a clock, or we get the events - if you want to call them that - presented in time-lapses. At some point, you also really start to feel at home in the couple's house. All in all, you can say that "4PM" is an unusual movie with an extremely clever premise, but unfortunately, nothing decent is made out of it. Somehow the X factor is still missing, it’s as if the dish still needed some seasoning and was not quite done yet. Which is a pity, because I really want to recommend the movie, but I can't do so with a clean conscience.

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