The Rental is a new movie released this year and I believe it is the opera prima of Dave Franco as a director. Even though it premiered during the pandemic, the film had great box office numbers and did even better in online rentals (pun intended). This is one of those movies where a group of friends have a great fun plan and it goes horribly wrong. Their plan is simple, like any plan any group of friends would do: go to a cottage to spend the weekend. The beauty of it is that The Rental plants an idea so simple and terrifying in your mind that after you watch it, you’ll feel very different about going to a cottage.
The Rental follows two couples who go spend the weekend in an idyllic secluded cottage at the edge of a cliff. Things get a bit wild while partying the first night, and the following morning some of them discover there’s hidden cameras in the house that are spying on them. Trying to figure out who put those cameras there and why, tension slowly takes over and in the last minutes of the movie things get ugly real fast.
I thought the first part of the movie was very good; the site where the whole movie takes place (the cottage on the cliff) is beautiful and to top that off the performances of the four main actors are great. You really get into what is happening the first night when they party; you know where it’s all going but that doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable and entertaining to watch. Once a part of the group discovers the cameras, they try to hide the secret from the others afraid of them finding out what happened the night before. This double threat of course makes things all the more interesting. The final act of the movie is action packed and has some good scares, although it felt a bit rushed and, seeing the top quality of everything in the movie, could have had cooler deaths. Maybe Franco did such a good job of building tension that it’s only fair that we expect a more detailed or explicit resolution. I feel the ending of The Rental was good precisely because it was very different from the rest of the movie, meaning the main characters are very rational and think of logic answers to their problems and that’s why they can’t see what’s coming for them.
All in all, The Rental was worth a watch. I really enjoy movies that have the nihilistic approach this one has, even though in the end I really felt I wanted to see and know more of what was going on and why. But I guess this turns The Rental into franchise material and, seeing the exit the film has had so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if they deliver a sequel in the near future.
Comments