Secret Mall Apartment Review: The Ultimate Mall Rat Documentary

Is Secret Mall Apartment good?

Yes — this is one of 2024’s most delightful documentary discoveries, backed by a Critic Score of 98, an Audience Score of 85, and a Metascore of 82. Jeremy Workman takes an inherently absurd premise and turns it into something with real substance: comedy about DIY ingenuity sitting alongside a pointed look at American consumerism. The near-unanimous critical enthusiasm and the strong audience numbers rarely align this closely, which says a lot about how well the film balances its two moods.

What is Secret Mall Apartment about?

It’s the true story of eight Rhode Islanders who built a hidden apartment inside a busy shopping mall and lived with it, on and off, for four years. Starting in 2003, the group quietly furnished and maintained a secret living space tucked inside Providence Place Mall, documenting the entire project themselves as it grew from a dare-like stunt into something closer to a shared home. Director Jeremy Workman builds the film almost entirely from that self-shot archival footage, paired with present-day interviews that reflect on why they did it and what happened when it finally came to light.

Should you watch Secret Mall Apartment?

Yes, especially if you’re drawn to true-crime-adjacent stories, heist mechanics, or documentaries about people who commit fully to a strange idea. With a Letterboxd rating of 3.5 and an IMDb score of 7.0 alongside the strong critic and audience numbers, the reception is consistently warm across every source the site tracks. At 175 minutes it asks for patience, but the film earns its length by following the stunt through its planning, its unraveling, and its legal aftermath rather than treating the premise as a one-note gag.

How does Secret Mall Apartment compare to Jackass Number Two?

Where Jackass Number Two is pure, gleeful chaos performed for its own sake, Secret Mall Apartment channels that same DIY, rule-breaking spirit into something with a slower burn and a sharper point. Both films are fundamentally about ordinary people using ingenuity and nerve to do something they clearly aren’t supposed to do, and both rely on footage the participants shot of themselves in the act. But Workman’s subjects aren’t performing for laughs alone — their four-year commitment turns a prank into a genuine inquiry about what these consumer spaces are for and who actually gets to occupy them. Fans of Jackass’s anti-authoritarian streak will recognize the impulse here, even if Secret Mall Apartment trades stunts for something closer to quiet, sustained rebellion.