The moment I saw the unhinged trailer for new HBO Max series Neighbors, I knew I wanted to talk to the people behind it. The concept is incredibly simple: follow duelling sets of neighbors as they navigate conflicts that truly boggle the mind – from privatized beaches to a few inches of grass.
The six-episode run feels groundbreaking in two ways. Firstly, it’s a callback to the sheer chaos of 2000s reality TV, in a Wife Swap meets The Osbournes sort of way. The ethics around making fly-on-the-wall shows have changed for the better, but Neighbors takes things back to a time before manufactured narratives were a thing.
‘Once you talk to these people and understand why they care, things start making a lot more sense’
“It’s definitely a documentary, and everybody on the show is 100% real. These are real neighbor disputes,” Redford confirms. “We never wanted to mock or make fun of anyone for anything, because it’s just not in our ethos. I think we like finding humor in things that are very serious, and in people taking things seriously.”
“In one of our episodes, we have two of our subjects debating a strip of land, of grass between their homes that’s like a few feet by a few feet. It could seem silly and ridiculous to most, but once you actually, talk to these people, and understand why they care, it starts making a lot more sense.”
Clearly, there’s a big duty of care that’s gone into creating Neighbors. Redford and Fishman found their subjects by doing grassroots work, like scouring Facebook pages and local newspapers. They’re as immersed in what we’re seeing as the subjects are, which wasn’t an easy feat.
“I think [our producers] are really attracted to real people and conflict, but also really care about deep, like human emotion and soul,” Fishman adds. “It’s the foundation. It’s not just conflict for conflict’s sake.
“There was some concern over whether we were an instrument of the other neighbors, trying to do something because there’s so much frustration. Anything that happens related to their dispute can sometimes be seen as a transgression from the other neighbor. So the only thing that we really had to do is assure them that we’re not picking a side and that we’re telling both sides of story.”
Redford continues, “A huge part of the casting process was so difficult because, you could have one person reach out after seeing an ad or post, but then we have this huge task of trying to get the other neighbor to also be open and willing to do the show. A lot of time they wouldn’t. I think like that inherently is a bit prickly and difficult.
“But towards us, we we never had anybody be hostile or negative. I think everybody that we worked with was grateful that we were there. and I think our process is very collaborative. We end up becoming really close friends and almost family with all of the people that we work with. But inherently, it being in the middle of these disputes is crazy.”
After watching the whole series, I think ‘crazy’ is an understatement. Neighbors is wild, relentless and completely bonkers, and frankly, unmissable television.
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