I considered quitting this film since, in its early parts, it is quite bland and trite.
It begins with a protagonist who lives a frumpish life alone in a drab apartment, elderly and depressed about her failed relationships. The cinema could do with more single people living alone and doing this happily, and The Other Side of the Street doesn't help matters. The static camera makes the beginning even more boring and frustrating too when, oddly, the first fifteen minutes or so seem to go by without giving us a clear view of the main character's face. Nor does the dull music (with slow piano bits typical of countless generic dramas) help. Building on this, the film first emphasizes the uninteresting theme of the elderly woman's despair about how pathetic and alienating life is for aged people, with out-of-control urban crime serving as a backdrop. The theme hits bottom in the wasteful scenes with Regina's fellow informant "Daffy Duck" (if only Bugs Bunny would come by to slap them around and spice the movie up), and the stylized, laugh-inducing piece in which Regina marches into a crosswalk grid and takes her position in a middle square (it might as well be marked with masking tape for the actress, like a cue on a stage floor) to stand upright for the audience as the city, magically devoid of people, looms around her.
When the film sets the central mystery in motion snoopy woman spying on her neighbor in the opposite building thinks he has killed his wife it doesn't look like things will get better. True, the incident in question has some weirdness to it: the man seems to give away his guilt when he immediately covers his wife's face with the bedsheet, as if he knows he's killed her. Then he has second thoughts and uncovers her and proceeds to sit down with the newspaper in the next room. Regina catches all this in pieces. But in general the film suggests this is just going to be some foreign remake of Rear Window.
Thankfully, an intriguing twist soon follows. Imagine you were watching Rear Window, and heroine Lisa begins to stalk possible murderer Lars Thorwald. Then Thorwald not only approaches Lisa, but asks her out on a date!
That is where this film begins to go, and the line between Regina investigating her neighbor and falling in love with him begins to blur. Along with some good comedy resulting from Regina disguising where she really lives, the drama that unfolds during the rest of the film is unique and compelling, enough so that you don't mind the awkward fact that the movie rather forgets about the mystery/suspense element. I think the filmmakers could've done much more to milk suspense out of the scenario, but the show ends as something that was worth watching.
It begins with a protagonist who lives a frumpish life alone in a drab apartment, elderly and depressed about her failed relationships. The cinema could do with more single people living alone and doing this happily, and The Other Side of the Street doesn't help matters. The static camera makes the beginning even more boring and frustrating too when, oddly, the first fifteen minutes or so seem to go by without giving us a clear view of the main character's face. Nor does the dull music (with slow piano bits typical of countless generic dramas) help. Building on this, the film first emphasizes the uninteresting theme of the elderly woman's despair about how pathetic and alienating life is for aged people, with out-of-control urban crime serving as a backdrop. The theme hits bottom in the wasteful scenes with Regina's fellow informant "Daffy Duck" (if only Bugs Bunny would come by to slap them around and spice the movie up), and the stylized, laugh-inducing piece in which Regina marches into a crosswalk grid and takes her position in a middle square (it might as well be marked with masking tape for the actress, like a cue on a stage floor) to stand upright for the audience as the city, magically devoid of people, looms around her.
When the film sets the central mystery in motion snoopy woman spying on her neighbor in the opposite building thinks he has killed his wife it doesn't look like things will get better. True, the incident in question has some weirdness to it: the man seems to give away his guilt when he immediately covers his wife's face with the bedsheet, as if he knows he's killed her. Then he has second thoughts and uncovers her and proceeds to sit down with the newspaper in the next room. Regina catches all this in pieces. But in general the film suggests this is just going to be some foreign remake of Rear Window.
Thankfully, an intriguing twist soon follows. Imagine you were watching Rear Window, and heroine Lisa begins to stalk possible murderer Lars Thorwald. Then Thorwald not only approaches Lisa, but asks her out on a date!
That is where this film begins to go, and the line between Regina investigating her neighbor and falling in love with him begins to blur. Along with some good comedy resulting from Regina disguising where she really lives, the drama that unfolds during the rest of the film is unique and compelling, enough so that you don't mind the awkward fact that the movie rather forgets about the mystery/suspense element. I think the filmmakers could've done much more to milk suspense out of the scenario, but the show ends as something that was worth watching.