Review: The Rental

Image courtesy of IFC Films.

Dave Franco's directorial debut, "The Rental," proves that the actor has some talent behind the camera, especially when it comes to creating mood and building suspense. On the other hand, the screenplay by Franco and Mumblecore auteur Joe Swanberg leaves a fair amount to be desired. Typically, a film's ending isn't a make or break deal for me - and in this case, the film had already run out of gas by the time it reaches its final 20 minutes - but "The Rental" has one of the most dissatisfying finales in recent memory.

The setup is simple - perhaps, too simple, one might argue considering the frequency with which such scenarios are made into movies. Two couples - successful Charlie (Dan Stevens) and his girlfriend, Michelle (Alison Brie), and Charlie's less successful brother and former jailbird Josh (Jeremy Allen White) and his girlfriend, Mina (Sheila Vand), who's also Charlie's business partner - take a getaway weekend trip to a secluded and expensive looking home in Oregon.

From the start, there's seemingly some tension - both from the fact that Charlie is a success, while Josh is not, but also because there's some obvious sexual tension between Mina and Charlie. Add to the mix the creepy - and possibly racist - owner of the B&B where the couples are staying who seems to have a problem with Mina being of Middle Eastern descent - plus the fact that he wouldn't rent the place to her in advance, telling her it was booked, but then renting it to Charlie when he called afterward. Also, a secret involving Charlie's dating past comes up, making things more awkward.

All of these elements combine to make a fairly tense mood, coupled with the creepy fog of which Franco and cinematographer Christian Sprenger make great use. The film takes a turn toward being a thriller/horror film shortly after two of the characters do something they shouldn't and then discover hidden cameras in the rental home.

While one might be led to believe these various moving parts will come together in the final act in a manner that provides a few scares and some resolution to the various issues between the characters, one would be incorrect. The final 20 minutes of the movie are among the most dissatisfying I've seen in a while. The film moves into slasher territory - albeit relatively low on gore - and the ending will likely leave some scratching their heads. For the sake of full disclosure, it wasn't until I read another review that I fully understood who the mysterious figure is who torments the group during the final scenes. Once I figured that out, the ending struck me as even more ineffective.

Franco's brother, James, has made numerous forays into directing, and Dave Franco has some obvious talent as a filmmaker - he does a good job of setting the scene for this story and keeping a tense mood throughout, that is, up until it unravels. But "The Rental" didn't work for me overall. Instead of utilizing the drama between its characters to build to something interesting - or even use the tension between the characters at the service of a good horror story - the picture merely falls apart when it falls back on familiar genre tropes.