THE RENTAL: A Stylish Debut
Dave Franco has made an admirable career as an actor but has often been left in his brother James’ shadow, whether it be flashier, bigger roles or personal scandals. Hopefully, that will change as The Rental, Franco’s directorial debut promises much for the new director.
Simple Premise
The film begins with a man and a woman looking for holiday rentals. She casually has her arms around him; the easy assumption to make is that these two are a couple, but you’d be wrong. Mina (Sheila Vand) and Charlie (Dan Stevens) are friends and co-workers, which we find out when Charlie’s brother and Mina’s boyfriend Josh (Jeremy Allen White) walks into the office after dropping someone off nearby as his job as a Lyft driver. The group, together with Charlie’s wife Michelle (Franco’s real-life wife Alison Brie), is planning on escaping to a beautiful, secluded rental house for a weekend to relax and party. Things get complicated once devastating secrets begin to cast a shadow over the group and they may or may not be alone in the house.
The set up is simple, almost too simple, but Franco, who co-wrote the script with mumblecore god Joe Swanberg milk it for all its worth. The Rental is a horror-thriller, but the real horror elements don’t kick in until surprisingly late in the film, yet the film never lacks any tension. Franco and Swanberg expertly create tension from the dynamic within the group as secrets begin to spill. There aren’t big, dramatic reveals or melodramatic moments and in fact, it’s the mundane, little things that seem to be creating the biggest gap between old friends.
Great Performances
The performance in The Rental is flawless. Sheila Vand is engaging as the group’s moral core, but Franco and Swanberg’s script takes its time to complicate and deepen the characters so they all come across as real, flawed human beings. Stevens makes Charlie interesting, but also plays him like the group’s villain with such ease, it’s terrifying in its own right. Jeremy Allen White isn’t allowed to do quite as much as he’s capable of and Brie is somewhat cast aside when the traditional horror plot kicks in. It’s still an incredibly tight 90 minutes, of which The Rental wastes none of.
All the actors bounce off each other great and they all share palpable, real chemistry. These are characters that perhaps barely work on paper; Josh has terrible violent tendencies, Charlie is rude and arrogant, Michelle is as square as they come and Mina is often selfish. But all the actors breathe life into these characters, complicating their bad qualities and making them seem relatable and authentic.
The scare factor of the film relies on the realism it aims to portray. You’re likely to think twice before booking your next Airbnb after watching The Rental and while the film doesn’t feature that many jump scares, it succeeds in creeping under your skin and then staying there for a good while after the end credits have finished rolling. The scares work and there is something bold about a film’s refusal to utilise easy jump scares just for the sake of fitting into the mould of a traditional horror film. The Rental isn’t necessarily scary but it is unsettling and creepy.
A Confident First Feature
Franco’s direction is solid and confident. The Rental feels aesthetically coherent and visually interesting, although it doesn’t hold many surprises. The ending might leave some viewers feeling disappointed due to Franco’s refusal at dishing out answers or even a proper villain, but it’s also a pleasantly surprising and ambitious way to end your first feature. Franco’s direction has dignity and integrity; it would have been easy to make The Rental into a commercial, mainstream thriller with an effective, but predictable ending. Instead, Franco and Swanberg choose to leave the audience hanging in the most delicious way possible.
To both writers’ credit, The Rental attempts to deal with deeper, more meaningful issues than just a potential killer. Vand’s Mina encounters microaggressions from the landlord of the house and while The Rental never becomes a film about racism, it’s a delight to see a character who is never defined by her race in a film that never refuses to acknowledge her experiences.
The film often leans heavily into Swanberg’s mumblecore background, which makes The Rental a character film before a genre film, but Franco mixes the two surprisingly effortlessly. Some will be disappointed in the film’s lack of action and gore, as well as the lack of a satisfying conclusion, but that’s also what makes The Rental such a brave debut for Franco.
Conclusion: The Rental
This is a stylish debut feature and promises much for Franco as a director. Franco gets organic, compelling performances out of this small, but talented cast. His next feature could be a little looser, a little wilder, but The Rental certainly makes us excited to see what the actor turned director will do next.
What did you think of The Rental? Are you excited to see what Dave Franco will do next? Let us know in the comments!
The Rental is out July 24th in the US.
Watch The Rental
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