Review: The Rental
Dave Franco's feature directorial debut The Rental is a slick and nasty picture. It's a film that, despite lacking a strong central thesis—bobbing between xenophobia, isolation, and voyeurism—manages to stun with its frequently evocative use of color and its wonderfully earnest performances. It begins simply enough. Two brothers, Charlie (Dan Stevens, The Guest) and Josh (Jeremy Allen White, Movie 43), rent a cabin for a weekend getaway with their respective partners: Michelle (Alison Brie, Community) and Mina (Sheila Vand, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night). But, a serene, idyllic weekend excursion this is not. Tensions run high as soon as they arrive as Mina and Josh's initial request to rent the property was denied—due to her Iranian name, they suspect—while Michelle and Charlie's request was accepted. Mina (rightly) confronts the owner from the start, creating a rift between the two couples. And while Josh backs her up, Michelle and Charlie feel awkward about the confrontation, placing the blame squarely on Mina.
Director and co-writer Franco wisely keeps the owner's intentions opaque enough here to create a shred of plausible deniability, but it serves more as a narrative catalyst: creating tension from the get. As the story progresses, however, these tensions bubble over. Old wounds are reopened, secrets are unveiled, and the drama, predictably, escalates. None of it is novel, but the performances here are so believable—Sheila Vand in particular is a standout—that the film captured my attention. Later, Franco ratchets up the tension expertly, pulling a page from Carpenter's classic Halloween; hey, if you're going to steal, might as well steal from the maestro. The invocations here are thoroughly unsubtle, one POV shot at the beginning of the third act lingers as we hear the killer's ragged breath in the background, but it's never so egregiously slavish to Carpenter's seminal work that it becomes distracting. Eventually the narrative takes twists and turns I didn't expect (and some I very much did expect). But, the joy here isn't in sitting in stunned surprise at a narrative revelation. No, it's in submitting to the relentless plotting of the picture. Franco builds and builds and builds, with each twist bringing us closer to a point the film seems almost gravitationally pre-destined to reach. And he capitalizes on this building sense of dread to great effect.
Visually, The Rental is surprisingly accomplished. It's understated at first, panning us through modern, glass interiors and it has that hyper-clean digital look so many Netflix films have (this film, though, is not produced by the streaming giant). However, as the film progresses, Franco and cinematographer Christian Sprenger (Atlanta, Guava Island) experiment with fog and shadow and splashes of color. In one painterly shot toward the end of the film, the lone survivor runs through a cloud of milky mist as their red sweater pops from the surroundings like a Christmas light. It has just a hint of the surreal and, in its palette, it recalls the climax of Guillermo del Toro's gothic chiller Crimson Peak; a fine visual comparison indeed. Another scene earlier on sees the killer emerge, giallo-esque, black glove-clad, from the inky recesses of a shadowy closet. It is a predictable image, but nonetheless remains visually distinct enough to stun. In fact, there are many such scenes peppered throughout the film's runtime. Scenes you've seen before in other home invasion films or other night stalker horrors. But, Franco and Sprenger's tactic of tactfully employing these images keep them fresh and memorable for the duration of the movie's tight 89-minute runtime.
Where the film truly falters, however, is in the final stretch. I won't spoil anything here, but suffice it to say that Franco attempts to crystallize the nascently-introduced dual themes of surveillance and voyeurism in a preposterous way. Before that coda, I admired Franco's willingness to stew in ambiguity and the chilling nihilism of the narrative's implications. But, as it tries to expand the lore of the film, it saps the power of its penultimate scene's final shot. This is a problem many horror films have, and perhaps it is poetic that, given how influenced Franco seems by Carpenter and, by extension, Hitchcock's classic Psycho he falls into the same trap of over-explanation Hitchcock did in his masterwork. The final shots play over credits and should be a chilling affair. But, they are robbed of their potency by Franco's unwillingness to leave good enough alone. It is a problem that has haunted many a first-time director (first time feature director in Franco's case). It's particularly frustrating here, because directly before this coda, Franco nails the climax, showcasing some of the film's most compelling work, visually. Nonetheless, I look forward to his next feature. Here's hoping he'll stick the landing in round two.
