Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Windfall’ on Netflix, a Spiky Home-Invasion Comedy Thriller Pitting the Haves vs. the Have-nots

Just an off-the-cuff observation here, but it seems like the pandemic has, maybe by necessity, inspired a bevy of small-cast/single-location films like Netflix’s Windfall. Less people and less locations? Makes sense. The feeling of being stuck in one place? Also makes sense. And in this case, stuck in one place against your will, as Jason Segel – who gets story credit – plays an intruder who kind of inadvertently ends up kidnapping a megarich couple played by Jesse Plemons and Lily Collins. It’s a whoops-now-what situation; let’s see how it plays out.

WINDFALL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: The opening shot will make you think of Hitchcock if it’s the last f—ing thing you do: Static shot, fluttering woodwinds and plucked strings and rumbling tympani, no human beings to be seen – consider the ominous tone established. You’re forced to study this perfectly weathered stone patio, its furniture, the house with its many floor-to-ceiling windows, the door left open for a curtain to flap lazily in the breeze. It spins 180 degrees and out over the stone-lined pool is a luscious desert mountain view.

You won’t be surprised to learn that rich people live here. Sort of. Sometimes. Seems too fancy and isolated for commoners – a commoner like a character the credits refer to simply as “Nobody” (Segel), who we find at a table outside, drinking orange juice. He wanders into the orange grove on the property, plucks a plump one, rips it open, juice squirting from its abundant flesh, and takes a big bite. He wanders back, tosses his OJ glass on the rocks and listens to it smash, goes inside to take a pee. He rummages through drawers, grabs jewelry, a Rolex, a wad of $100 bills. There’s a gun in a box. What does he do with it? Not sure. That’s the movie f—ing with us. He uses a towel to wipe door handles and other surfaces. Why didn’t he wear gloves? He doesn’t seem very good at this.

And hey, guess what – he’s not very good at this. Not at all. Because once characters known only as CEO (Plemons) and Wife (Collins) arrive unexpectedly, Nobody (please note capitalization) doesn’t know what to do. Amateur hour. Our rich couple discusses how they never get out here anymore, this gorgeous place that you or I would love to spend a weekend at, just one weekend to luxuriate in the pool or sauna or orange grove or zen garden, (and maybe not spend $4,000 doing it? Just a thought). Our intruder guy listens to them gripe about how an assistant blew it and didn’t put any food in the fridge or arrange a crapload of flowers all over the place like they asked. He tries to sneak out, but Wife spots him. Like I said: Whoops. Now what?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Maybe Hitchcock’s Rope or Lifeboat crossed with a home-invasion thriller a la Funny Games or Wait Until Dark crossed with a stagey dialogue comedy like Carnage, with some Persona-inspired scenery and a few Coen Bros.-isms a la Fargo.

Performance Worth Watching: Collins’ character is stuck between Plemons and Segal’s rich guy/poor guy paradigm, and gives the most nuanced performance as a result.

Memorable Dialogue: Plemons’ character gets a couple of doozies:

“How can people be so mad at me? It’s like being mad at a clock.”

“Try being a rich white guy these days. It sucks!”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Windfall functions as a microcosmic allegory of sorts, slowly revealing that CEO, a billionaire, got rich writing an algorithm and, instead of retiring young like a sane person might do, now finds himself in the business of corporate consolidation, spending a lot of time justifying his callous decisions to the many people who hate him. The movie does not slowly reveal that he’s an arrogant shitheel – that’s prevalent right off the bat. Meanwhile, Nobody, a disgruntled former employee of CEO, was simply going to commit burglary and maybe leave an upper-decker in the master bath, and now he finds himself demanding a ransom. He asks for $150k, but CEO and Wife talk him up to half a mil, perhaps because they don’t know how crazy and desperate he is and are trying to appease him, or perhaps because for them, losing half a mil is like you or me losing a quarter down the sewer grate.

This on-the-nose socio-economic dichotomy is a key suspenseful element in the movie, which teases out the true nature of the interpersonal dynamic at play. Maybe Nobody is a loose nut who could crack, maybe he’s a nice guy who lost himself in his rage and despair. Maybe CEO is a cretin, maybe he’s – no, he’s pretty much just a cretin. But maybe CEO and Wife’s marriage isn’t particularly strong, as one would suspect, considering one of them is a cretin. The situation plays out with some strong, subtle dark comedy: They’re forced to eat some miserable dry cereal flakes as they wait more than a day for the ransom cash to be delivered; they go for a leisurely stroll to the zen garden, as if they’re giving Nobody a tour of the estate, and when he asks, “You got anything else you never use?” they end up firing up the outdoor projector for a screening of Three Amigos.

Windfall walks the line between being populated wholly with unlikeable characters, and being populated with characters who are deeply flawed and eventually sympathetic. Without the comedic touches, this would be a miserable 90 minutes, but as it stands, it’s a reasonably entertaining, well-acted almost-noir that ends up setting its somewhat provocative, but also somewhat simplistic themes atop a pile of TNT and hitting the plunger. There are many ways a movie like this could end. One is thoughtfully, which some might find dissatisfying. Another is to make such an abrupt left turn, you end up flipping the car. I won’t say how it ends, of course, but I will say it kinda mostly stinks.

Our Call: Does the ending wholesale ruin Windfall? Almost. So STREAM IT, because its modest successes outweigh its failures.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.