FAQ

Just returned from a stint in China, elementary school teacher Victor (Jay Baruchel) takes an apartment in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (NDG) neighborhood of Montreal, Quebec. When he meets his two neighbors, Louise (Emily Hampshire), who lives below him, and Spencer (Scott Speedman), who lives below Louise, he tries to get chummy with them, but Spencer is wheelchair-bound and doesn't go out of his apartment and Louise likes cats more than she likes humans. Louise is also obsessed about a recent spate of serial murder/rapes that have been committed in the neighborhood.

Good Neighbors is based on the 1982 novel Chère Voisine by Canadian novelist Chrystine Brouillet. The novel was adapted for the screen by Canadian filmmaker Jacob Tierney, who also directed the movie.

Spencer and Louise cook up a plan to make Victor the fall guy for the murder of Valérie Langlois (Anne-Marie Cadieux). They will plan a dinner party so they can say they were the last to see Victor alive and noticed at the time how sad and weird he was acting. After the dinner, Louise is to go back to Victor's apartment, tuck him in bed, leave his window open, and go back to her apartment. Her signal to Spencer that she completed her task is to run the bath water. Spencer will then climb up to Victor's apartment, kill him, and leave a suicide note. At the same time, Victor and Louise cook up a plan to expose Spencer as the killer. Knowing that Spencer saw him from his window, Victor is certain that Spencer intends to kill him, so he decides to use himself as bait. After having dinner together, Victor is to return to his apartment and go to bed, leaving the kitchen window open so that Spencer can get in. However, he has the foresight to alert Detectives Brandt (Gary Farmer) and Bilodeau (Pat Kiely) to his plan. One evening in February, Victor makes lamb for Louise and Spencer, after which Louise goes back to Victor's apartment, tucks him in, and leaves his window open. She sees Brandt and Bilodeau's car sitting outside and nods to Victor, signaling that they're out there. She then goes down to her own apartment and runs the bathwater. Spencer climbs up the fire escape and lets himself in Victor's open window. Victor is waiting. He turns on the kitchen light and catches Spencer. Spencer heads back out on the fire escape, and Victor follows. They struggle, and Spencer falls off the fire escape, falling the four stories to his death. Brandt sees Spencer on the fire escape and heads up to Victor's apartment. He tells Victor to call 9-1-1 and assures him that he did the right thing every step of the way. Meanwhile, Louise can hear everything that's going on while she stands in her kitchen, opening a can of cat food for Balthazar. In the final scene, she lets Balthazar out the window, and he runs down the fire escape to Spencer's open window and climbs on top of one of fish tanks.