Zsolt Kézdi-Kovács' shrewd comedy is set in a tenement house marked for demolition, where the scramble for space and shelter serves to bare otherwise hidden drives and eccentricities in the tenants. Once a brothel, the condemned building now houses families of varying size in its tiny rooms. All the tenants have been promised relocation to commensurate living quarters. In an effort to enlarge his own cramped corner before the space is assessed, Dibusz, the “good neighbor” of the film's title, gets to know his fellow tenants on an intimate basis; advising, organizing, and generally meddling in their lives, he attempts to latch on to their living spaces, as well. Laszlo Szábo (a Hungarian actor who has been living in Paris, and whom audiences will recognize from his appearances in the films of Godard and others) imbues the film with subtle insight in playing the role of Dibusz on a thin edge between apathy and unsentimental sincerity.
“We use the housing shortage to talk about everything,” director Kézdi-Kovács has stated in an interview with J. Hoberman of the Village Voice. Hoberman adds, “There is a basic truth to his exaggeration. Three-quarters of Budapest's housing stock lay in ruins after the war and the city's population has doubled since then. The scarcity of apartments... contributes to the high divorce, abortion, and suicide rates....”
Kézdi-Kovács was one of the founders of the Béla Balázs Studio of young filmmakers in the Sixties, and was for several years assistant to Miklós Jancsó before making his own highly acclaimed features, of which The Nice Neighbor is the fifth.