Windfall

The most intriguing thing about Windfall is that it makes us want to know more about the trio of characters played by Plemons, Collins, and Segel by the time the credits roll. In the beginning, Windfall puts across a largely harmless hostage situation featuring these nameless characters, but as it progresses, we get to know there's more to it than what meets the eye. The film is coated in bits of wry humor, primarily thanks to Plemons' arrogant billionaire feat and his shunning of the world filled with freeloaders and nobodies. It then makes complete sense when you see Segel being credited as "Nobody."

The score by Danny Bensi & Saunder Jurriaans is a crucial piece of this puzzle, intensely punctuating almost every scene. Director Charlie McDowell treats us to a dark, twisted climax that not only makes the most sense, given all we know about the trio, but it also gives Lily Collins her shining moment! I understand that Windfall isn't as conventionally funny or thrilling as most of us would've wanted, but I'm glad the director chose the slow-burn route for this subject.

A man (Jason Segel) breaks into an unoccupied vacation home to steal money and valuables from it, only for his theft to become interrupted when the owner, a wealthy tech CEO (Jesse Plemons) and his wife (Lily Collins) arrive. With options limited, the man takes the CEO and his wife captive and extorts a large sum of money from them as tensions escalate not only between captor and captive, but also the CEO and his wife.

Windfall is the latest film from Charlie McDowell, director of The One I Love and The Discovery from a screenplay by Justin Lader and Andrew Kevin Walker (Seven, 8MM). The film is a chamber piece featuring only three actors in an isolated setting and feels like it harkens to other isolated chamber thrillers like Wait Until Dark or Dial M for Murder. While the movie featres some solid performances from its cast, it feels a little confused in its thematic elements.

While like many home invasion thrillers of this ilk, the movie is a cat and mouse game involving the invader's objective for money or some other valuable McGuffin, the movie tries to add a thematic subtext of class disparity and economic abandonment. The characters remain nameless throughout the story and are solely defined by their importance in the plot as well as their socio economic statuses. It's hinted throughout that Jason Segel's character has been made "redundant" thanks to an algorithm developed by Jesse Plemons CEO and the movie tries to tap into that working class frustration seen with paradigm shifts in our economy that have left many behind with absolutely no plan or consideration for where they go. Jesse Plemons as the CEO is really good acting as sort of an amalgam of several wealthy archetypes with a lot of grandstanding about being "self-made" and derision about those on lower rungs as "lazy whiners" who give up at the first obstacle and the movie tries to establish this situation as a microcosm of class tensions in a way similar to how Knives Out broached the subject of political tensions (albeit with dialed back humor and a way grimmer approach). Lily Collins plays the CEO's Wife, and her positioning in the film is strange. Collins character is established as having started out as an assistant saddled with student loan debt prior to marrying the CEO and now runs the charitable foundation of the CEO's company. She's also got a strained marriage with the CEO thanks to his infidelity and it's established pretty early on she harbors some resentment towards him.

The movie had me engrossed throughout thanks to the strength of its leads with Jason Segel playing against type in a more serious role as well as Jesse Plemons as an intriguing character who you're never quite certain of, and even Lily Collins despite playing a more nebulously defined character is still engaging in the role. But the movie stumbles in the third act. Per the standards of other Andrew Kevin Walker movies like Seven or 8MM, the movie tries to have a shocking twist which it is, but it's a twist that makes you think "why exactly did that happen?" and it feels like it throws away much of the themes it was trying to discuss because it couldn't figure out how to tie them up and instead just goes for some brutal violence.

Windfall is a solid enough chamber piece and a showcase for its three leads' talents, but on a story level it struggles to establish the themes it brings up and stumbles in the third act basically throwing away all the buildup for the sake of a shock that doesn't make sense on a character, storytelling, or thematic level.

I was hooked on home-invasion thrillers as far back as Straw Dogs. Since then, I've read Flannery O'Connor's stories relishing the outsider, who usually changes things for her and seen Hard Candy. Because of the home-imprisoning pandemic, I'm ready for a new serving of terror right in my own home. Enter minimalist Windfall from Netflix.

"Nobody" (Jason Segel), a drifter who commandeers wealthy vacation homes while the owners are away, invades the home of "CEO" (Jesse Plemons) and "Wife" (Lily Collins) somewhere in the remote Southwest, where its isolation suits the danger of the invasion. Oops, the couple comes home early.

Unlike most films in this subgenre, Windfall has little violence, whereby the implicit danger is amplified by being ever present underneath it all. Befitting a tyrannical CEO with little humane orientation, he is up for negotiating their release after Nobody takes them hostage and demands ransom. Although Wife is already imprisoned by her husband's wealth and megalomania, she contradicts his outlandish terms and generally reviles him for his ego's endangering them.

Meanwhile, Nobody is trying to understand CEO's obtuseness and almost amused by the couple's lack of connection to each other. In other words, Windfall is about character and what is revealed under stress. No one comes off well, but you can tell the abductor is a better person than the husband. As for the title, the cash Nobody demands and gets could be a "windfall," but I suspect the character revelations qualify even more.

Wife plays a pivotal part in the outcome; you will have to see this Netflix thriller to experience the twist. You may identify with the characters whose fates slowly unfold as a result of their character, but not quickly and with little help from the mese en scene. Fate fits character but not obviously or quickly.

A fun date night unless you're like the ego-centric CEO.

This was a very hit and miss film for a lot I believe, some will love it and others will hate it. Unlucky for you lot I'm sat on the fence here. It has some really good positives, but it's equalled out by the negatives.

Positives: as the title says the actors absolutely carried this film. As I'll discuss a little later, the film lacks in depth and these actors really managed to sell their characters with the little they had, honestly brilliant performances from the 3. The cinematography throughout was immense as well, brilliant shots as it went on.

Okay what didn't I like: the biggest issue which most people will hate is the pacing of the film. It's really really slow. You could leave the room for 15 mins, come back and be at the exact same point. Ultimately I don't feel there was enough plot wise to make a film, so it was extremely slow.

The character depth was non existent. The actors did an amazing job of illustrating the character traits, but ultimately we know sod all about them so it's quite difficult to gain an emotional connection to any. Why is Jason Segal robbing this house? If he was doing it for his child or something we could picture him as a good guy even though he's doing a bad thing. But nah, plot gives us absolutely nothing. It's trying to add this element of mystery, but goes too far for me.

The ending. Again, I feel some might like and some won't. For me it's an okay ending, but very underwhelming. I understand the chain of events as it makes sense for said character, but it still was just really underwhelming and doesn't really solve much. They could have done so much more and instead they tried to do something really off the cuff as not a lot happens up until the end.

Ultimately I feel this film had good potential, but the poor pacing of the film really ruins it. You have here 3 amazing actors putting in a right shift, but they have so little to work with it the plot falls flat. I alluded earlier but they needed more, there simply wasn't enough here to get a film out of it.

Having said that I did somewhat enjoy it, mainly for the character performances and I was sat there for the whole film wondering what will happen and how will it end. So I guess the film maintains a mild tension. But I can't give above a 5/10 on this. It's maybe worth watching if you're bored, but I wouldn't recommend to my mates if I'm honest.

We've seen this hostage-ransom story a million times, and this is nothing new in that regard. However the tone and atmosphere that the film provides (heavy lifted by Danny Bensi's 'noir-ish' score) really does make this an enjoyable easy watch.

It's another 'pandemic' film in which restrictions meant there needed to be a barebones cast and one location, but thankfully this flavour of cinema is one of my favourites; you seldom get over saturated plot information in this 'genre' and are left to just enjoy the craft of filmmaking on a mostly technical level. Windfall is no different. Lack of plot, suspect story twists, and a short film script stretched into a feature length film doesn't take away from it being a satisfying watch.