The Neighbors' Window is a 2019 short film (21 minutes) directed by Marshall Curry.
Alli (Maria Dizzia, Orange Is the New Black) and Jacob (Greg Keller) are a middle-aged couple in New York with two children and a third on the way. They're rich enough to afford a spacious apartment with a view of the river on Manhattan Island, but they are in full-on mid-life crisis mode. Alli is stressed out with the daily pressure of taking care of two young kids and carrying a third. Jacob seems more helpful and attentive than many husbands, but he is subject to the same feelings of dissatisfaction and unhappiness about getting older, and he also comments once about how he's unhappy with their non-existent sex life.
Enter the couple across the street, (Juliana Canfield and Bret Lada) who are quite a bit younger than Alli and Jacob, who are childless, and who have sex a lot. In front of their window, without lowering the curtains. All the time. Both Alli and Jacob fall into the habit of watching their constantly bonking neighbors, but especially Alli, who watches the young couple not so much for voyeurism, but because they remind her of her lost youth.
Tropes:
- Bathtub Scene: Not for Fanservice, but a contemplative moment, as Alli takes a bath after realizing that the man across the street is very, very ill.
- Cerebus Syndrome: What starts out as a comedy about a housewife who can't stop watching her horny neighbors, gets a lot darker in the second half when one of the neighbors gets sick.
- Coitus Uninterruptus: The couple across the street think nothing of having wild, athletic sex in front of a window with the curtains up. (They're 3-4 floors up, but still.)
- The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: The neighbor woman says that her husband was "very sick". It's obviously cancer.
- Hypocritical Humor: When Alli and Jacob first notice their neighbors having sex.Alli: I can't watch!
Jacob: [smirks] As she keeps watching. - Insistent Terminology: The first time that Alli and Jacob watch the couple across the street humping.Jacob: She's very flexible.
Alli: You know, he's really hot too.
Jacob: I didn't say hot, I said flexible. - Kitchen Sink Drama: A middle-aged couple, dealing with the stresses of family and growing older.
- The Peeping Tom: Alli can't stop watching the neighbors have sex, and while it's a little bit about voyeurism, it's mostly about her being jealous of their youth and vitality.
- The Reveal: The young couple across the way was watching Alli and Jacob. While Alli was jealous of her neighbors' youth and vigor and wild sex, the neighbor woman envied Alli for her health and her beautiful children.
- Seasonal Baggage: Used to mark the passage of time. The film starts out in what looks like it might be summertime. Then shots of snow everywhere show that it's winter. Then there's a shot of people playing in the park to show that it's spring. Finally shots of leaves falling from trees to show that it's fall again.
- Wall Bang Her: When Alli and Jacob first notice their neighbors having sex, the man picks the woman up and gives it to her everywhere—against the opposite wall, on the counter, all over the room.Jacob: They're christening the apartment.
- Window Watcher: Alli in particular can't stop herself from watching her young, happy, fun neighbors.
