Contrecoups

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.

It starts off with kind of a wacky, Coen Brothers energy and then turns into a much darker thriller. It's an intriguing premise and I liked the cast, but it feels a bit undercooked.

Things happen that don't have proper buildup or explanation and some of the logic is a bit iffy. It's interesting, however it can really drag with some of the long, awkward staring into space scenes. It's definitely not the best Netflix film, but far from the worst.

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.

This movie could have been a good short movie of 25 minutes duration as only last 10 Minutes and initial 15 minutes are important . Rest of the time is just filler. It is not near to any Hitchcock movie other than music part of it. In case you have watched all good movies and you have nothing to watch than give it a try or otherwise skip it. But is timepass movie.

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.