The Outside Story

Outside StoryI first saw a trailer for this off-beat indie film about a couple years ago (maybe on imdb.com?), but it was streaming on Hulu I think, which I don’t have.

But it looked quirky, so I made a note of it on my phone and would occasionally check if it hit DVD (and the library had it) or had reached Amazon Prime.

Yesterday, I saw that it had hit Amazon Prime, so I watched it.

Basically the story of an introverted guy – almost agoraphobic – who works at home as a video editor in his Brooklyn apartment. Long story short, he manages to lock himself out of his apartment, and so he has no choice but to get to know his neighbors: The piano prodigy who lives above him and her horrible mother, and a top-floor neighbor who is in the midst of a threesome with a couple from Oslo, a pregnant woman next door – and an older woman who has recently lost her husband but wants to try out online dating.

Combine that with altercations with a prickly cop (Sunita Mani, from Mr. Robot) who writes parking tickets just to stick it to folks, and it’s an interesting examination of life in a neighborhood.

I don’t know where it was filmed, but it pretty much all takes place in Brooklyn (?) on a beautiful autumn day. Nice atmosphere.

Oscar material? Nah. Just good character actors in a slow-arced, not overly-complicated indie vibe film.

Glad I ran across it.