I was taken into the world of Windfall, from director Charlie McDowell with a screenplay from Justin Lader and Andrew Kevin Walker (story from both screenwriters and Charlie McDowell and Jason Segel), from the opening credits, which set the neo-noir tone.
Jason Segel played a character who held his cards very close to his chest, so close, he never revealed his name and is credited only as Nobody. He is the first character we see on the screen, as he takes in this luxurious desert vacation home of a wealthy couple we’ll meet later, simply enjoying a glass of orange juice, following it up with fresh oranges from one of the many orange trees on the property. His disdain for the excess wealth is apparent from his urination in the shower to tossing his empty glass into the distance. He almost leaves the house basically untouched when he has a change of heart and decides to seek out the pocketable valuables (jewelry, watches, money). Unbeknownst to him, this decision kept him from leaving before the couple arrived on an unplanned vacation. The couple is played by Lily Collins (Wife) and Jesse Plemons (CEO).
While Lily Collins and Jesse Plemons are playing the victims of a robbery, Jesse Plemons still comes off as more villainous than Jason Segel in the film. In part, that’s because the film is doing a commentary on wealthy people that create their wealth at the expense of others. Wealth so great that the amount they can get delivered to them to handle a problem is more than a character like Nobody could initially conceive to demand. Jesse Plemons is perfectly cast in the role because he plays this kind of villainy well and has done so often as of late. It reminded me of his Black Mirror character.
Often noirs take place in the shadows, to highlight the murkiness of the characters’ moral compasses. This film rebuked that model and took place mostly in the blazing sun. I liked this shift. I loved how sweltering it looked as this trio of people, bound together, each with their own deceits, are forced to walk together in the light.
The film is more about an escalation of events than shocking twists or discoveries. Much like Se7en (which co-screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker also wrote), the film isn’t interested in providing easy answers to questions. There’s no “What’s in the box?” line, but there are a lot of questions left unanswered, but it’s not a film about answers or clearly defined motivations. It’s why you never know the identities of any of the characters. It’s why when Wife reveals something real to Nobody near the end, he dismisses it briskly. You don’t need a complete picture to get a sense of the “why” everything unfolds the way that it does. It is the lack of answers that makes it that much more interesting. Like early horror films when you didn’t know why a killer killed. Or when you have to decide what’s in the box. Sometimes, the answer the audience comes up with can be more interesting/scary when left to their imagination.
I was obsessed with the ascetic of this film. The opening sequence reminded me of old David Lynch. Isiah Donté Lee (cinematography), Andrew Clark (production design), and Elizabeth Goldsby (set decoration) deserve praise for the work they achieved on this film. Netflix is currently one of the few places producing these lower-budget feature films, and while it’s great these films have a home, I would have loved to have seen this film, and their work, on a bigger screen.
Windfall is available on Netflix.