Stream It Or Skip It: ‘How to Deter a Robber’ on VOD, an Amusing Blend of Home-Invasion Drama and Offbeat Comedy

Now on VOD, How to Deter a Robber is a promising debut from writer-director Maria Bissell, who gives Vanessa Marano of Switched at Birth fame and Benjamin Papac (Netflix’s Greenhouse Academy) some nicely flat-pancaked comedy to chew on — across from the ever-lovin’ Chris Mulkey, That Guy in That Movie and noted Twin Peaks veteran. So relative youth and relative maturity and a fine-tuned script combine to become… what? A quietly surprising movie blending understated comedy with the tension of a high-stakes drama? Sounds about right.

HOW TO DETER A ROBBER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Two burglars ransack a house, stealing what they want and smashing what they don’t. Jaunty Christmas music plays on the soundtrack. One of the ski-masked jerks grabs a wooden sign with a cutesy phrase on it, smashes it over his knee and tosses it in the woodburning stove, the manifestation of a feeling I experienced recently while pushing a cart down the LIVE LAUGH LOVE aisles (yes, there were more than one) at “decor superstore” At Home. CUT TO: Madison (Vanessa Marano), in her family’s cozy vacation cabin in woodsy Wisconsin. She’s apparently spending part of Christmas evening penning an essay for her application to Northwestern, which is exactly what one does on the most blessed of holidays. She writes about a “deep and painful loss” she experienced when she was young, and we eventually learn it refers to the death of her goldfish. Mayhaps she’s not taking this seriously enough?

Madison’s aimlessness is a point of tension with her mother Charlotte (Gabrielle Carteris), and her boyfriend Jimmy (Benjamin Papac) doesn’t help, because when it comes to being a goof-off artist, he’s Pablo f—ing Picasso. It doesn’t get any better when a squabble over the Xmas turkey involving the three of them results in the bird bouncing off the tray, one-hopping off the stove and landing in the bin. So there’s no protein for dinner for them, and Madison’s stepfather Scott (Arnold Y. Kim), stepsister Heather (Leah Lewis) and uncle Andy (Mulkey). There’s no mention of pie, but for the sake of everyone’s appetite, I hope they made pie.

Charlotte and Jimmy seek to escape her family’s annoying holiday dysfunction by smoking a J and drinking a beer in the garage. They sneak over to the neighbor’s house to investigate the potentiality of a ghost playing with a lightswitch and end up playing out their buzz with a ouija board and some implied sexytimes, then fall asleep. They awake in the morning to find the home ransacked, so of course they’re implicated, and can’t leave the county. So Uncle Andy agrees to take them in for a bit, until his house also is robbed, which puts them back at the cabin and rigging the place with dumb booby traps to maybe deter the crime spree and drinking more than just a little bit and watching Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and yes, Andy is also participating, albeit somewhat reluctantly. It sure seems like a matter of time until the crowbar bozos bust in looking for loot, although I can neither confirm nor deny such a thing because, y’know, spoilers.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Funny how How to Deter a Robber finds the precise middle ground between Home Alone and Funny Games, with the indie-comedy charms of something like recent gem Werewolves Within.

Performance Worth Watching: Marano has an enviable Anna Kendrickian deadpannishness (let’s go deep: think Rocket Science) that pairs nicely with Mulvey’s terrifically steadying character-actor skills. They share a couple of nice, earnest scenes when the silliness abates a bit in the second act.

Memorable Dialogue: “To be honest, this is my first time ever having a hostage,” confesses one of the burglars in her nasally Midwestern twang.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Also funny, how How to Deter a Robber makes up for its amusing slightness with a third act that sneakily becomes high-wire tense with a bit of a Coen Brothers-esque flourish. I liked the character development and interactions, specifically the way Bissell establishes mother-daughter tension between Madison and her mother, and the way Jimmy and Madison break down one or two of Uncle Andy’s walls, and vice-versa. The characters are ever so slightly slight, but they’re also endearing in their balance of the familiar and idiosyncratic, never devolving into over-quirked indie-movie territory.

Not that the film is a masterpiece, mind you. It succeeds on its own modest terms: Make you care enough for these characters so they can, I dunno, survive to be less of a loafing slacker living a life of frivolity, I guess. Bissell doesn’t do a lot with a little, although she does plenty enough, maybe slightly less than a lot, but more than a modicum, and definitely more than just a dollop or a smidgen, in the space of a tightly economical and highly refreshing 85 minutes. How to Deter a Robber won’t alter your perspective on the art of filmmaking, but it’s certainly the type of assured storytelling that makes you hope Bissell gets a shot at a bigger-budget comedy sometime soon.

Our Call: STREAM IT. How to Deter a Robber is more than a bauble but less than a precious stone, which is a way of saying it’s a nice little gem of a comedy.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Where to stream How to Deter a Robber