Many of us have, at one point or another, been stuck in a bar argument that went on a bit too long, that got a bit too hostile, with someone we didn’t know too well — and it’s rarely a memory to be treasured. Would it help if the guy at the other end of the beery debate was the handsome, accomplished, generally likable German-Spanish thespian Daniel Brühl? “Next Door,” in which Brühl puts a thinly disguised version of himself through the psychological wringer, suggests not. The actor’s slender, self-reflexive directorial debut transitions from a low-key meditation on the privileges and perils of stardom to a far-fetched stalker drama in the time it takes to down a few pints, all while rarely leaving the confines of one scruffy Berlin dive bar. Yet the film’s games of genre-shuffling and celebrity self-satire can’t override the essential tedium of its core conflict.
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