The Long Hall

Interesting things happen in halls. In them, we encounter neighbors or classmates or family. We bump into and are introduced to strangers. We carry things and move things. We say hello and kiss goodnight. But mostly hallways are places of transition—the not-quite-there-yet limbo between where we have been and where we are going.

Two recent films, “Across the Hall” and “Adam,” which couldn’t be more different, both have hallways playing significant roles in them. In “Adam,” the main character falls in love with a girl he meets in an apartment building hallway, and in “Across the Hall,” dark deeds happen in and on either side of a hotel hallway.

“Across the Hall”

An expanded version of his 2005 short film of the same name, director Alex Merkin's “Across the Hall” is a feature-length noir thriller that follows the tense standoff between a young man, his best friend, and his fiancée. Mike Vogel appears opposite Brittany Murphy and Danny Pino in a film penned by Merkin and Jesse Mittelstadt—the same two who collaborated on the original short film.

A quiet night takes a dangerous turn when Julian receives a frantic phone call from his best friend, Terry, who has followed his unfaithful fiancée, June, to a downtrodden Riverview hotel on the other side of town. Having a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a revolver in the other, Terry is staked out in the room across the hall from her.

As noir as anything I’ve seen recently, “Across the Hall,” has more style than substance, but enough more that you might not notice. That said, it is a well constructed thriller with some nice twists and surprises that manages to build and sustain tension.

Desire is a powerful force—one that not only propels us through life, but actually is life, causes life to be, causes life to continue. But there’s a dark side of desire. The desire for another, so primal, so pure, can turn into jealous possession—a violent grip that can squeeze the life out of a relationship. Love is freedom. The two words come from the same root, and you can’t have one without the other for very long—freedom is oxygen that feeds love’s flame. If love is present, our most passionate possessings of others will be simultaneously releasings. This is clearly something Terry doesn’t understand. Gun in hand, he’s going to force June to get into the cage of his desire and eliminate the competition for her affection. The Buddha says end desire and you end suffering, and though non-attachment is certainly a solution, for me, fully attaching in love and freedom is the better way—though, actually, the two approaches are far more closely aligned than they may appear to be. We were created to be free. God, the universe, the world, only give us freedom. If we are imprisoned it is our own doing—including submitting to the dark side of someone else’s desire and the cell their control wants to lock us in.

Merkin’s movie has some very nice touches, and though he calls “Across the Hall” a “psychological thriller, a Hitchockian story,” that’s a bit of a stretch. Hitchcock is far more subtle, far more restrained, far more refined. Still, Merkin manages to sustain a delicious sense of dread, and his old, empty, dark hotel on a rainy night provides enough atmosphere for a couple of films.

One of Brittany Murphy’s last films, “Across the Hall” shows her sultry little lost wild child/almost-a-woman sexuality, that, like her voice is sexy, but a bit awkward. Of course, this vulnerability adds to her appeal.

“Adam”

In a very different hall, two misfits meet and miscommunicate.

In this sweet, charming romantic dramedy, Hugh Dancy (“The Jane Austen Book Club”) plays Adam, an intriguing and handsome young man with Asperger Syndrome, who has led a sheltered existence his entire life—and probably would’ve continued to, but when he meets his new neighbor, Beth (“Knowing”), a beautiful, understated young woman, she pulls him out into the world in ways he could’ve never imagined. The results are funny, touching and entirely unexpected. Their implausible and enigmatic relationship reveals just how far two people from different realities can stretch in search of an extraordinary connection.

“Adam,” both the lead character and the film itself, is sweet—with quiet but palpable charm and very real appeal.

Genuine connections are rare, deep connections difficult—realities only complicated by Asperger syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder that involves significant challenges in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. Adam’s condition presents him with obstacles to intimacy that at times seem insurmountable. But when it comes to relationships, I think we’re all more like Adam than we’d care to admit.

Having authentic, abiding, actual connections with others and being involved in every crevice of at least one other person (and maybe more) is what we most long for, but our relational Aspergers keeps us trapped inside ourselves, unable to risk the naked, egoless, love-based vulnerability required for true and utter human bonding. And sometimes, tragically, even when we have our own relational Aspergers under control, the person we’re attempting to relate to is unable to because of theirs.

Like Adam, part of what keeps us imprisoned in our relational Aspergers is rigidity. Our pride and egos and lack of love leave us wounded, defensive, unable to bend, unable to forgive. When Adam refuses to forgive Beth for her humanness, his wise older friend says, “Everyone is a liar. You’ve just got to figure which liars are worth loving.” It’s obvious from the very beginning that getting involved with Adam is risky for Beth, but Adam is also taking a risk, as we all do in connecting with others. Perhaps nothing is as risky, but certainly nothing is more worth the risk.

Interesting things happen in halls—sometimes life-altering things. After all, it’s not the destination, but the journey that most determines who we are and the quality of our lives. And you could do worse than spending some time in the dark hallways of the Riverview Hotel or the dingy hallways of Adam and Beth’s apartment complex. Both are aspects of the long hall of humanity. In fact, life itself is a hallway lined with doors—each representing options, opportunity, and, ultimately in the choosing, destiny.