NEIGHBORS

US, 1981, minutes, Colour.
John Belushi, Kathryn Walker, Cathy Moriarty, Dan Aykroyd.
Directed by John G. Avildsen.

Neighbors comes from a black satire on suburban paranoia by Thomas Berger. The film has review quotations at the beginning to help the audience onto its wavelength. The film is an interesting attempt to dramatise Berger's novel, but it is very hard to appreciate the irony and the satire. The film seems particularly American in its tone, issues and its being directed towards an American audience. The film stars the team of John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. They had appeared in Saturday Night Live with great success and had appeared together in 1941 and The Blues Brothers. Belushi had also appeared in a variety of roles in Goin' South, Continental Divide. This was his last film. The film is in the vein of so many black comedies from the United States in the '70s. It is a kind of M.A.S.H. in the suburbs.

Direction is by John G. Avildsen who won an Oscar for the direction of Rocky. The film is for specialist audiences interested in satire on the American lifestyle. It does make points in its satiric way about phobias and paranoia of the ordinary suburban type.

1. Audience response to black comedy? Its reality and unreality? Caricature and exaggeration? Satire? Jolting the presuppositions of an audience? Insight via satire?

2. The insights of Thomas Berger and his literary presentation of these? Transforming literary satire into visual satire? The quotations at the opening of the film to indicate to the audience how to appreciate the film?

3. Reality and unreality: the atmosphere of suburbia, the visual impact of the two houses, the area in which the couples lived, the locality of its characters? Recognisable yet odd? Audience identification, yet feeling dislocated from the area? The jolting effect?

4. The stars and their comic reputation? Comedy and television style? Their channelling their styles into this satire? Subdued style?

5. The visual impact for black satire and comedy? The verbal humour? The musical score and its echoes of film genres, especially horror films? The references to other films and the use of devices from suspense and horror films? Shaping audience expectations? Satire in the American tradition?

6. Earl as the ordinary American citizen in the suburbs? His work, bank balance, wife, daughter? His being very conventional? His changing as the day and night went on? His looking out the windows curiously, the initial encounter with Ramona, his being disturbed by Vic, his wife and minding the dog, his beginning to spy on Vic, the truck and its landing in the water? The night beginning to get out of hand?

7. Earl and the growing humiliations, his being blackmailed by Ramona about the truck, his being miserable and going to the swamp and being sucked in the quicksand, scared by Vic in the shower, being locked in his cellar, the phone calls and his being abused, Enid gradually ignoring him, Vic shooting at him, his being locked out of his own home? The effect of this dark night on him?

8. His attempts to cope? His relying on manners and good form? His re-entry into the house? Everybody leaving and the effect on him? His being alone with the television after giving away his car? Vic and Ramona returning? How credible his decision to go with them? why? His being sick of his way of life, the need for adventure? The reconciliation with Vic and Ramona, how persuasive? The irony of his house burning down? Compensation for the destruction of Vic and Ramona's house? The point of his abandoning his suburban way of life at the end? The comment made on suburban paranoia?

9. Enid and her ordinariness, the long relationship with Earl, the dissatisfaction with the marriage, suburban boredom, her minding Vic's dog and not telling Earl? The build up to the meal and Vic's preparing it? Jealousy of Ramona and yet chattering with her? The daughter returning home and its effect? The night and Earl's being out? Locking him out? The house burning down? The final reconciliation and the giving of the car? The irony of her going off to her seminar with the Red Indian friend? The film's comments on the style and types of the American suburban housewife?

10. Vic and Ramona and their oddball behaviour? How credible? The introduction to Ramona and her slinkiness towards Earl, going up to his room, the bath, the seduction attitudes, the blackmail about the truck? Her friendship with Enid? The rendezvous with Earl? Her finally going with Vic? Vic and his zaniness, the arrival, taking Earl's car, making the spaghetti at home and the slovenly way he did it, taking offence with Earl, the truck and the swamp, Earl and the quicksand and his falling in, hiding in the shower, locking Earl in, his costume on guard and shooting at Earl, the house burning down and the collapse, taking Earl's money and the car? His return to take Earl with them? A credible comedian? The impact of his zaniness? The points being made about the offbeat American?

11. Earl's daughter and her arrival, her story about school, her flashy style, participation in the black comedy, her becoming more normal in appearance, her return to school?

12. Earl and his phoning his friend and Vic's interventions and the friend's puzzle? The garage man and his son and their abusing Earl? The son taking Earl's daughter away?

13. How much insight into suburban way of life, the madness behind the surface manners, the artificiality of suburban values? How satisfying a critique and exploding of suburban propriety and its myths?