This season's most anticipated new release at the cinema seems an unlikely contender. Neighbor Nightmares: The Movie is based on an episode of the moderately popular UK daytime show. The show, which chronicles the disputes and niggles between neighbouring homeowners, seems an unusual starting point for a blockbuster, but as the movie's executive producer, Marvin Concrete, explains, all the ingredients are there.

"Coupla years ago, I was over in the UK promoting the new Bruce Stallone movie, and I was in my hotel room flicking through the channels on the TV. Guess I was a little bored. I'd already been through the minibar, eaten all the soap, that kinda thing. Well, I wound up watching this show about bad neighbours, and boy I was hooked! It had everything: drama, tension, boundary disputes, planning permission applications. It had the lot! And it was a true story, which always plays well with audiences."

The film is based on the popular Channel 5 TV programme.

The particular episode that caught Marvin's attention, and the one on which the movie is loosely based, concerns a homeowner called Dennis Pseudonym, a dispute about a shared drive, the placing of some flowerbeds and a nightmare neighbour called Henry Asbestos, who "looked at him funny" on at least three occasions. Pretty thin stuff, you might think, but for Marvin Concrete that was part of the appeal.

You get a feel for these things.

"I figured that if the TV guys could spin this story out to a half hour episode, we could go the extra distance and turn it into a full length feature," Marvin explains. "Listen, I've been in this business a helluva long time, and you get a feel for these things. I know when I've got a hit on my hands, and right there in that hotel room, I knew for certain. I had that familiar fluttering in the pit of my stomach, the twitching fingers, the restless excitability that made me pick up the phone straight away and get the ball rolling. Of course, I'd eaten a helluva lot of soap by then."

Helming the project is director Brian De Nom-de-Plume, a safe pair of hands who has previously scored hits with adaptations of reality shows, including Australian Border Cops, Dog Patrol and Finnish Big Brother. He is keen to defend the movie against criticisms that it strays from the absolute truth.

The flowerbed was approximately 3 inches too far to the left.

"We're making movies here," he explains. "We're asking people to sit in a theatre for two hours and watch this story. That's a big ask so we've got to deliver the goods. And if that means throwing in a car chase here, or a love scene there, then that's what we gotta do. Take the council planning meeting scene. Now, in real life, Dennis Pseudonym did not burst in there with a semi-automatic rifle, shoot up the place and then deliver an impassioned speech as the flaming remnants of the council flag fluttered down around his ears. In real life, I gather that that sort of thing rarely happens. In fact, I don't believe the council has a flag.

"Then there's the love scene between the Mrs Pseudonym and the borough surveyor. I guess I can't say too much about that at the moment, as the borough surveyor is currently taking legal action against us, but whether there is any truth in it or not, you've got to admit that it's a beautifully shot scene, with the candlelight gleaming on the surveyor's buttocks and everything. We should get an Oscar for that."

Cruelly and unexpectedly eaten by a tiger.

Also hotly tipped for an Academy Award is Meryl Streep, who plays the tortured and conflicted Mrs Asbestos. As the wife of the film's main villain, she must display solidarity with her husband's cause, despite knowing that he is ultimately in the wrong. Matters are further confused by her feelings for Mr Pseudonym, and her breakdown after her garden gnomes are smashed is perhaps the highlight of Streep's career. Her death scene, when she is so cruelly and unexpectedly eaten by a tiger, provides one of the movie's most poignant moments.

Nevertheless, at a press screening, it was the chemistry between the two male protagonists that got critics excited. Tom Hanks puts in a solid performance as Mr Pseudonym, an ordinary guy wrapped up in legal red tape driven to extraordinary lengths by council planning regulations. Meanwhile, Gary Oldman's turn as Mr Asbestos captures the intensity of a man consumed by obsession, so totally convinced that he is in the right about his ownership of a communal thoroughfare that he is prepared to go to extraordinary lengths.

An indelible imprint on audiences.

It is perhaps fitting that the scene that has garnered the most praise was not a Hollywood invention, but something that happened in real life: the scene when Henry Asbestos looks at Dennis Pseudonym funny. Word is that Oldman and Hanks workshopped that scene for several weeks, and though it amounts to just a few seconds of screen time, it is a moment that leaves an indelible imprint on audiences. Indeed, when he was asked about it at a recent screening, the real-life Dennis Pseudonym reportedly said that it "brought back some unpleasant memories." You can't really hope for a better recommendation than that.

Taken from The University of the Bleeding Obvious Annual 2022
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