Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Fenced In’ on Netflix, a Grating Brazilian Comedy About Obnoxious Neighbors

Netflix movie Fenced In boasts that title because the direct translation of its Portuguese moniker, Vizinhos, is Neighbors, and there are already too many movies called that. E.g., the pair of Seth Rogen/Rose Byrne comedies, the Buster Keaton classic, and the Belushi/Aykroyd offbeat-comedy masterpiece (more on this one in a minute here). This Brazilian film deposits a tame Ned-and-Maude-Flandersish couple next door into a screaming hippodrome of madness, an overly familiar conceit that one hopes turns out a fresh laugh or three.

FENCED IN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: We open inside Walter’s (Leandro Hassum) skull. Synapses fire and spark and I think his hammer, anvil and stirrup are about to break apart and tear through his brain and kill him. That’s as viable a reason as any the movie offers regarding his noise sensitivity, which forces him to quit his retail job, where he sells drums and guitars to nuns who are not actually nuns but screeching heavy metal rockers wearing habits just for the sake of a gruesomely tortured joke. His doctor says if he doesn’t move out of the overstimulating city, he’ll die, so he and his wife Joana (Julia Rabello) do what anyone in that situation would do – they move to the country and plant a garden and raise chickens in a subdivision where they have neighbors they don’t bother to scrutinize ahead of time in case they’re incredibly loud people who throw gigantic megaparties and play drums outdoors and have hundreds of pets and dress like circus clowns on bath-salt benders.

But that doesn’t happen and they live happily and quietly ever after the end. No! I’m lying! Next door is Tony (Mauricio Manfrini), a samba musician who hosts dozens of drummers at his home to practice at 125 dB for hours and hours. The only thing that can cut through the din is Tony’s wife Kelly (Marlei Cevada), a recovering beauty queen whose shrill voice and irksome demeanor makes Peg Bundy look like a portrait of poise and restraint. It’s only a matter of time before Walter and Joana go next door to ask them to keep it down a little and Walter ends up covered in cat shit with a parrot latched onto his tongue as several drumlines batter away and push him to the precarious precipice of his grave. They also call him Wally and their grandma repeatedly says he’s “simple-minded.” It’s a rough scene.

Joana urges Walter to just take more sedatives, except he warns her that doing so will render him impotent. She gasps, and at this point, we’re becoming increasingly aware of Joana and Walter’s vast and sprawling personality flaws, and how their seemingly sweet and loving marriage suffers from many fundamental problems. They communicate poorly and deal with conflicts and problems in ways that are grossly antithetical to logic and common sense. The movie doesn’t really address any of this, mind you, nor is such subtext intentional, but it becomes increasingly prevalent that they need intensive psychological counseling as they deal with a series of situations that start out ludicrous and ramp up to full-blown mania.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The ultimate terrible-neighbors comedy is John Avildsen’s Neighbors, a lost 1981 gem/box office floparoo in which John Belushi plays the mild-mannered type and Dan Aykroyd is the maniac who moves in next door. Cathy Moriarty is TERRIFYING in it. It’s one of the weirdest movies you’ll ever see.

Performance Worth Watching: Yours. But only if you make it to the end, because doing so requires Olympic-level tolerance of high-volume horseplay.

Memorable Dialogue: “We like to toss the banana in that salad, Wally.” – Tony

Sex and Skin: Only a wearisome avalanche of spoken double-entendres.

Our Take: So, you may ask, Walter and Joana up and moved pretty easily once before, why don’t they do it again? I have an answer: Because then Fenced In wouldn’t have a manufactured third-act conflict to throw away like a crumpled up piece of paper over the shoulder of a frustrated screenwriter (yes, it misses landing in the wastebasket) in lieu of a different manufactured third-act conflict that’s so very much more wacky, one that’s telegraphed ahead of time when Walter decides the best way to control the neighbors’ out-of-control pet situation is by purchasing a gun that fires tranquilizer darts. You will see the inevitable resolution of this setup coming right at your head, right on time like the 3:20 commuter train from Poughkeepsie.

Every situation here is predictable: Walter and Joana’s knickers twisting as their daughter genitally commingles with Tony and Kelly’s son, attempts at friendliness between the hostile parties that backfire, inevitable tonal swerving into thick and syrupy sentiment, jokes about insurance companies not covering medical procedures that aren’t really jokes but reflections on deep and cruel societal flaws, etc. Extract the misunderstandings, miscommunications, animal hijinks, shootings, double entendres and other wearisome comedy fodder, and there would be nothing left of this movie. Hassum strikes one as a gifted physical comedian – somewhere between Mr. Bean and Jerry Lewis – left to mug and stammer, mug and stammer, mug and stammer his way through a script ruthless with cliches. He grinds out the occasional pebble of improvisational inspiration, but his performance only brings up sad images of Sisyphus and the boulder.

Our Call: Fenced In is colorful, in the sense that getting a bucket of paint dumped on your head is also colorful. It’s screeching and annoying and barely dredges up a laugh. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.