The Ones Below  ★★½

THE Ones Below is an older-style psychological thriller in the vein of Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby and Hitchcock’s Frenzy. 

I’m not saying it’s as good as those classics but, knowing nothing about it, I was pleasantly surprised by the twisting narrative and unsettling tension that builds to an excellent climax with some uncompromising results.

The writer and director, Englishman David Farr, is currently making a name for himself as writer of The Night Manager, a new cable TV series gaining strong reviews and audiences.

He brings an assured hand to this film and may be a name to look out for.

So what’s it about? A couple are looking forward to the birth of their first child. Another couple move into the apartment below and, as luck would have it, she is also pregnant and the women bond and become friends.

But a tragic incident at a dinner party leads to further events that eventually cause the young mother-to-be to question her own sanity.

The film is basically a four-hander with Clemence Posey and Stephen Campbell Moore playing the first couple and Laura Birn and David Morrissey ‘the ones below’. All are very good, but Posey is particularly effective in the lead role.