The Ones Below

In London, it’s rare to properly know your neighbours. And with the release of The Ones Below, it seems one has even less of a reason to pop round for tea and biscuits.

Kate (Clémence Poésy) and Jon (David Morrissey) are a settled couple, expectant with their first child, living in a spacious apartment in a London terrace. Their downstairs flat, following the death of its owner, is taken over by Justin (Stephen Campbell Moore) and Teresa (Laura Birn), another couple, who are also expecting. Kate and Jon invite the other couple over for dinner, but as the evening progresses, tensions build in the apartment, culminating in a tragic incident that kick-starts a wave of psychological torture for Kate. What follows is a chilling game of cat-and-mouse, one that reveals the mental isolation that can be faced by a new mother, and critiques a system that treats women as hysterical.

And yet perhaps this film is better read as an exploration of class differences, and how the economic can spill over into the personal. Kate and Jon are icons of millennial modernity, their flat all artfully stripped down wooden flooring. In contrast, the flat below is all shiny surfaces and primary colours. At times, this spills over into heavy-handedness, such as when Kate looks out of the window of her dull flat to see Teresa lounging in the sun-dappled, John Waters-esque garden, like a plasticky extra in a pop video. But director David Farr throws in subtler hints along the way: Kate works at the V&A, while Justin’s investments mean Teresa never needs to work again; the age-difference between the downstairs couple creates a palpable note of suspicion with Kate and Jon; and Teresa’s gift of a gender-colour-coordinated sailor’s outfit for the baby clashes with Kate’s penchant for muted tones. In short, the tension between the two couples may be a result, not of any psychological disturbance, but from the tensions of the class system.

At least, that’s my take on it, and lord knows this film needs it, otherwise it’s nothing more than an adequate re-tread of innumerable paranoia-dramas, namely Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby. There are tropes in The Ones Below that have become deeply ingrained in the thriller genre – you can see them coming a mile off – and it would have been much more effective if the film avoided them full-stop. We end with a conclusion that leaves no doubt about what happened in the viewer’s mind, erasing any semblance of ambiguity created in the preceding 80 minutes. Those looking for a fresh take on the topic of female hysteria should look elsewhere. The Ones Below is a competently directed take on a well-trodden topic; a Polanski for the hipster generation.