Windfall review: Netflix’s old-school thriller puts Mark Zuckerberg on trial

In the following three characters: WindfallNone of these have names: Jesse Plemons plays a rich tech CEODog PowerLily Collins plays his wife (played by )Emily in ParisJason Segel plays the role of Jason Segel as the man who robs them.The Muppets). They weren’t supposed to meet — at the start of the film, the thief is alone in the couple’s empty villa. it’s only when the couple changes their plans and arrive to find him in their home that the film’s tense, 90-minute negotiation kicks off. In the ensuing one-act play, the real hostage isn’t a person, it’s the idea of the meritocracy, as WindfallIt slowly turns into a thriller of class-rage over the imprisonment of Mark Zuckerbergs around the globe.

Charlie McDowell’s latest movie (I Love The One I LoveHitchcockian, ‘The Hangover’ is currently streaming on Netflix. The film presents a Hitchcockian throwback. Each character arrives onscreen and reveals a little about themselves, even though they’re trying not to. The more time they spend together, the more they reveal, even when it’s bad for them. They can’t help being who they are.

Filmed using wide shots and extended takes. Windfall feels like a play, even though it doesn’t ditching the pleasures of cinema. Its single set — the villa and its surrounding orange grove — is lovingly portrayed with symmetrical compositions and gold-tinged colors. The film’s score is full of reedy woodwinds that take listeners through peaks and valleys as the power dynamics shift between the trio, whose performances are Simply loud enough to bring them firmly out the range of “subtle,” but not so much that they become outright cartoonish.

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Plemons is a delight as “the CEO,” a man who, for much of the film’s runtime, cannot believe he’s being robbed. He suspects he’s somehow victimized the intruder, whose full motivation is never fully revealed — that his livelihood was somehow harmed by the successes of the CEO’s companies, or that he’s enraged by the CEO’s stature and perceives it as unearned. That belief manifests as smug condescension toward the guy holding him hostage: In one scene where the couple’s unexpected guest demands money, the CEO laughs, and says he should be asking for twice as much.

There are many of WindfallIt is a discussion between male leads about the things they want and whether or not the other should have them. In that sense, the CEO becomes an avatar for the new tech-billionaire elite, believing he’s earned his status and actually faces significant adversity, as the whole world eagerly waits for someone like him to fall. The thief, faced with his quarry’s pettiness, takes comfort in his belief that his understanding of people remains superior, no matter how desperate his situation gets. Segel’s performance as the thief stands out. His acting skills are both sharp and he displays a mean streak that is rarely found in his work. And in the balance is the wife: the film’s quiet fulcrum, whose sympathies shift and sway depending on who’s actually listening to her and who isn’t.

Windfall’s script, written by Justin Lader and Andrew Kevin Walker (from a story by Lader, Walker, Segel, and McDowell), isn’t quite subtle enough to make the film a success. The film’s commentary is too heavy handed and its characters are drawn in too well. The script allows all three characters to get messy. Each character crosses lines and surprises the other, resulting in an endless series of mistakes that make the movie more interesting than it was at the beginning. That’s the dangerous thing about so-called meritocracies: They’re often built on lies rewarded with money. If these lies are held accountable, then the person below will appear a lot more ordinary than they were before.

WindfallNetflix now has the ability to stream it.