Identity Crisis: A Review of 'My Neighbor Adolf'
In one of his final feature-film performances, Udo Kier was still up for causing a führer
January 9, 2025
The late, great queer actor Udo Kier may have been mind-numbingly prolific — 270+ IMDb credits — but he also had excellent taste.
When he died late last year, his end-run of projects included a bravura lead performance in the bittersweet Swan Song (2021), an appearance in the quirky A E I O U: A Quick Alphabet of Love (2022), an out-of-this-world mark on the overlooked Bacurau (2019) and memorable scenes in this year’s Oscar-worthy The Secret Agent.
Coming up are a couple more projects, but one of his last feature films to receive a theatrical release is My Neighbor Adolf. Shot in 2022, this pitch-black comedy finds him embodying a role he’s played several times before — Hitler. (Or is he really Hitler? That’s the question.)
How many other actors can play Hitler, let alone play him so differently each time? His terrifying Hitler on the series Hunters (2023) is nothing like his maybe-Hitler in My Neighbor Adolf. He seems to instinctively know the precise amount of Udo Kier to inject into the role each time.
In the latter film, David Hayman is Mr. Polsky, a Holocaust survivor who has fled to Argentina, and who hears a lot about the arrests of mysterious German immigrants in the ‘60s. Though he lives alone, his embittered solitude is shattered when a German moves in directly next door to him, his only neighbor for miles.
The problem is not only that this interloper’s dog shits in his yard and pisses on his prized rose bush, but that Mr. Herzog (Kier) bears a striking resemblance to Hitler.
Could Hitler, with the aid of a little plastic surgery and a lot of help from admirers (aka diehard Nazis), still be alive? Could fate have delivered unto Mr. Polsky the opportunity — the obligation — to singlehandedly bring down the greatest villain of all time, the man who gave the orders that exterminated his family?
This sounds more like a horror film, but writer (with Dmitry Malinsky) and director Leon Prudovsky teases out all the awkward humor, and both Hayman and Kier deliver masterfully calibrated performances that smooth over any bumps. It’s a stylish, atmospheric thriller with a smile, and the answer is every bit as surprising as the situation in which Polsky finds himself.
Much is made of Herzog/Hitler’s/Kier’s eyes in this film, and Kier makes incredible use of them, as he always has. His performance shifts from icy menace to cloudy and empathetic to openly nostalgic. Even Polsky forgets, from time to time, with whom he may be dealing, like Douglas Kelley playing cat-and-mouse with Hermann Göring.
My Neighbor Adolf is a fine send-off for Udo Kier. And, Udo being Udo, it’s one of several “last films” from which we can choose. ⚡️