I watched this at home under optimal conditions: with the dimly employed music-industry exec next door blaring his stuff full blast at midnight in my rent-stabilized East Harlem building. (He's a nice guy and doesn't mind me banging away on my piano, so we're cool.) So maybe I'm unduly sympathetic to this piece, which admittedly suffers from insubstantial and generally unsympathetic characters, an insufficiently established final twist, and a host of rude and spoiler-prone commenters here on IMDb.
Still, "Noise" is refreshing in elements. Key decisive moments are amply teased ahead, producing more tension than you see in a lot of indy "psycological thrillers." The accrual of stresses on a frustrated NYC studio-dweller ring rough and rudimentary, but true. The protagonist's choices are as much to blame for her decline as her antagonist's boorish provocations, and the subway shots and outdoor scenes lack the stylized glamour (and/or overly glorified dinginess) that mark them as false in mainstream productions. This flick is nothing if not quotidian in its trappings.
There are also a handful of lines that really could have dangled like cigarettes from the mouths of European-inflected windbags in the publishing industry 'round these parts. But couldn't they have come up with something better than "Gotham" as a standin for New York Magazine? (If that's a spoiler for you, you probably need a Metrocard more than you need "Noise" on your Netflix list.)
There is a smattering of homage to classic apartment thrillers like Single White Female and Rosemary's Baby, but they only serve to highlight Noise's thin budget, cinematography and script. A half-dozen lines, including the detective's final valediction, suggest the playwright longs for something better, and knows it ain't quite happening here. Give it a shot if, like the protagonist, you're stuck at home on a rainy Tuesday with a bottle of hooch and nothing else worth trying on Video On Demand.
Still, "Noise" is refreshing in elements. Key decisive moments are amply teased ahead, producing more tension than you see in a lot of indy "psycological thrillers." The accrual of stresses on a frustrated NYC studio-dweller ring rough and rudimentary, but true. The protagonist's choices are as much to blame for her decline as her antagonist's boorish provocations, and the subway shots and outdoor scenes lack the stylized glamour (and/or overly glorified dinginess) that mark them as false in mainstream productions. This flick is nothing if not quotidian in its trappings.
There are also a handful of lines that really could have dangled like cigarettes from the mouths of European-inflected windbags in the publishing industry 'round these parts. But couldn't they have come up with something better than "Gotham" as a standin for New York Magazine? (If that's a spoiler for you, you probably need a Metrocard more than you need "Noise" on your Netflix list.)
There is a smattering of homage to classic apartment thrillers like Single White Female and Rosemary's Baby, but they only serve to highlight Noise's thin budget, cinematography and script. A half-dozen lines, including the detective's final valediction, suggest the playwright longs for something better, and knows it ain't quite happening here. Give it a shot if, like the protagonist, you're stuck at home on a rainy Tuesday with a bottle of hooch and nothing else worth trying on Video On Demand.