Lily Collins and Jesse Plemons in Netflix’s ‘Windfall’: Film Review
If you find the obscenely rich tech CEO played by Jesse Plemons in Windfall hard to believe, with his noxious comments about “a world full of lazy fucking loafers and freeloaders,” you might want to check out recent remarks by Kim Kardashian for an equally contemptuous variation on that theme. Watching Plemons do an about-face from gentle George in The Power of the Dog and sink his teeth into a smarmy creep who makes the mistake of believing his privilege renders him invulnerable is the chief pleasure of Charlie McDowell’s twisty thriller about wealth inequality. But this is a sharply directed and well-acted project that makes a virtue of its modest concept.
McDowell’s 2014 debut feature, The One I Love, was largely confined to a single setting, a gorgeous compound in the Ojai Valley in Southern California. The action of his even more claustrophobic new film for Netflix returns to another handsome estate in that area, reverse-engineering a noir-inflected story that’s predominantly a three-hander, this time hatched out of pandemic necessity. While the screenplay by the director’s regular collaborator Justin Lader and Se7en writer Andrew Kevin Walker indulges in occasional padding to flesh out the conceit, and the shocker of an ending could have used a tad more foreshadowing, the film is sufficiently resourceful and gripping to reward a watch.
More from The Hollywood Reporter
Jason Segel, who has worked frequently with McDowell and developed the story with the director and writers, plays an intruder billed as “Nobody.” The stylishly Hitchcockian opening credits unfold over a static shot of an elegant, adobe-style house, curtains billowing in the breeze behind French doors that open onto a stone-paved outdoor area. This is clearly some enviable real estate. But it’s not just the ominous tone of Danny Bensi and Saunder Juriaans’ suspenseful score that indicates something amiss.
As DP Isiah Donté Lee’s camera pans gracefully beyond the pool and through the orange grove and cactus gardens of the sprawling grounds, it quickly becomes apparent that Segel’s scruffily dressed character doesn’t belong there, despite making himself at home with a glass of juice and fresh fruit picked from a tree. He’s evidently in no rush as he wipes off fingerprints and gathers valuables — a decent wad of cash, jewelry, a Rolex — and is not expecting the arrival of the vacation home’s also unnamed owners, Plemons’ tech multibillionaire and his wife, played by Lily Collins.
The burglar has already found a pistol in a drawer, but the way the camera lingers momentarily over a weighty marble sculpture suggests that, and not the weapon, might be Chekhov’s gun. Or maybe both objects will follow that principle.
The CEO, who has barely entered the house before he starts complaining about his assistant’s failure to fill it with flowers and stock the fridge, is a man unaccustomed to people not following his orders. He doesn’t take kindly to being told what to do either, even by a thug standing over him threatening harm.
Plemons makes him seem mildly bored by the whole inconvenience as he offers up an additional stash of cash and encourages the intruder to be on his way. But he also appears irked by the disrespect, suspecting the stranger may be one of his obviously many disgruntled former employees. “Were you on staff? Is that what this is?” he asks. “Not everybody works for you,” responds Segel.
When the burglar does make moves to get out of there, he spots a security camera on the road outside the property, causing him to turn back. Figuring he’ll need more money to avoid arrest, he negotiates first too low, then too high, eventually settling on half a million dollars as a reasonable sum.
It seems a bit contrived that both the CEO and his wife would advise the guy pointing a gun at them that his initial request of $150,000 isn’t nearly enough to allow him to disappear and have any reasonable quality of life. But something has to keep the three of them together for the 90-minute duration, and it might as well be the 24-hour wait before the unseen assistant can have the money delivered. The CEO uses the excuse that it’s to pay off a woman who is not abiding by an NDA, seemingly not the first affair that’s cost him.
Segel’s character ruefully confesses at one point that he got greedy and couldn’t help himself, wanting to see how it felt to live like the person who created an algorithm that eliminated countless jobs while making him even more astronomically wealthy. Which is why he hung around instead of getting in and out fast. But it’s the greed of Plemons’ character and the ugliness it has bred in him that becomes the film’s subject.
Collins’ character comes from an assistant background in the nonprofit world and now runs her husband’s philanthropic foundation. The mild signs of annoyance on her face as he speaks to her in a proprietorial, vaguely condescending way — reminding her, for instance, that she’ll stop working and take an advisory role after the baby they’re trying for is born — don’t even register with him. Nor does her disconcertion that night when the intruder splits them up and the CEO suggests she try to “win him over,” to help prevent him doing something drastic once he has the money.
The script doesn’t break new ground with its depiction of a tech magnate in the Elon Musk-Jeff Bezos mold, used to treating people like idiots and inferiors. But the corrupted soul of the man gives Plemons plenty of juicy meat to chew on as he self-righteously defends his intolerant views and even whines about how hard it is these days to be a rich white guy with a target on his back. When his wife diplomatically reminds him that not everyone who needs help is a freeloader, he humors her by agreeing, but there’s nothing deferential or warm in his attitude.
The tensions between husband and wife break through like minor ruptures in their calm surface. Clearly, this is a woman who has paused more than once to question to herself the kind of life she has opted into and the person she’s chosen to spend it with. Her husband is a man who never questions himself.
Collins (who is married to McDowell) expertly conveys the character’s sensitivity — she speaks to the intruder like a human being, unlike the CEO, who treats him like a pathetic nothing — and the increasing realization that she’s married to an incontrovertible asshole. The way he reacts to the outcome of a fourth character who briefly appears just provides more proof. Collins gets the largest arc to play, with a startling conclusion that works, even if it’s not a hundred percent plausible.
Unlike Sam Levinson’s similarly conceived housebound Covid project, Malcolm & Marie, McDowell resists the urge to give the couple explosive arguments, mindful of the fact that they’re in a tricky situation that could go very wrong, even if the CEO behaves like it’s some kind of tedious game. Having the intruder observe the mostly unspoken frictions between them and then use that as a blunt instrument toward the end gives Segel intriguing shades to play beyond resentment, desperation and the lively mutual animosity that sparks in every exchange with Plemons.
Each of the three principal roles provides interesting opportunities for the actors, giving the slender psychological character study the semblance of more depth than it actually has. That applies also to Bensi and Jurriaans’ turbulent score, which ratchets up the tension throughout. This is not an especially bold or ambitious film, but it succeeds on its own terms.
Best of The Hollywood Reporter
Solve the daily Crossword
