With how badly things went with director Charlie McDowell’s last film The Discovery, a bloated and undercooked mess of a sci-fi story, seeing him go in the complete opposite direction for his latest certainly inspires some hope. It’s a single-set thriller with a minimal cast and a run time of about 88 minutes without counting the end credits, co-written by one of my favourite screenwriters in Andrew Kevin Walker. Sure, it’s also co-written by Justin Lader, one of the culprits responsible for The Discovery, but maybe this will work out better. Well, to its credit, it does, although I still don’t think it’s making the most of what little it has.
It's basically a low-key home invasion kind of deal, with Jason Segel’s Nobody breaking into a lush holiday home to rob the place… only for the owner (Jesse Plemons’ CEO) and his Wife (Lily Collins) to arrive unexpectedly. The three of them do very well with their characters, especially considering how archetypal they can. Plemons is the typical capitalist oligarch, someone so comfortable in his life and so used to everything going his way that he has the balls to actively insult and belittle a man pointing a gun in his face. Opposite him, Segel is the hard done-by working class representative, trying to claw back what has been denied him. And then there’s Collins who, aside from doing well with an American accent, is also the one caught in the middle of this microcosmic class warfare. Considering an asset by both men, albeit to different ends, she ends up being the one who goes through the most growth over the course of the film.
Through the many theatrical-grade conversations the three of them end up having, there are a lot of familiar talking points brought up in regards to the ethics of wealth, class divides, a brief reference to modern ‘cancel culture’, and societal power dynamics at large. The dialogue benefits from AKW’s sense of world-building, using these three as the entry point to a much larger setting and financial structure, and it benefits from having a little bit of lucidity for both sides. It definitely sides more with the working-class side of things in general, but it doesn’t miss the opportunity to point out that Nobody is basically making it up as he goes along in terms of the hostage situation. Admittedly, this leads into a bit of ‘both sides’-ing the topic of classism, and painting Nobody into a bit of a corner as a result, but a lot of what is said still makes sense.
However, because these two are such clear-cut embodiments of their respective sides of the class divide, there’s not much in the way of tension as far as what will happen to any of them, the Wife included. Isiah Donté Lee’s cinematography and the soundtrack from Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans both lean into the Hitchcockian influences of the framing and story setup, but as good as it sounds and looks throughout, it doesn’t manage to sustain a sufficient amount of anxiety to carry even its shorter run time. As perversely funny as it is that the CEO takes this situation so much in stride, it also cuts into any sense of dread that should reasonably come out of anyone, regardless of social standing, being held at gunpoint. The production probably should have played into the more absurdist aspect of this whole thing, push harder on this clash of extremes to bring out the sharpness of the script’s talking points. But instead, it tries to play things straight, and suffers as a result.
Don’t get me wrong, though; off the back of the central performances, I’d still say that this is worth checking out. Segal works well in a more serious role, Plemons makes for good hate-watch material, and Collins balances them both out with a much-needed human presence on-screen. It may not take full advantage of its isolated setting, and some of its messaging can be a bit too straight-forward to make this vehicle as worthwhile as it could have been, but for the kind of small-stakes cinematic exercise it is, it's alright.
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