Despite its gleaming setting, Windfall strikes the tone of a noir, its story suffused with a cynicism as sweeping as the vistas its mansion overlooks.
The owners, a tech billionaire and his chic wife , attempt to reason with the burglar, offering him whatever he can grab. They almost succeed in getting him to leave. But when “Nobody” suspects he’s been caught on tape, he asks for enough money to start a new life, so the trio must wait around for a half a million in cash to be delivered the next day.
Director Charlie McDowell excels in putting unhappy couples through their paces during would-be secluded retreats. In his 2014 film, another husband and wife encounter unexpected strangers at a dreamy vacation home while attempting to revive their relationship. But whereasis propelled by a real-life crisis: the gaping chasm between the incredibly rich and the rest of us, and the impossibility of bridging it unscathed.
, the 2004 German-Austrian crime drama about a trio of young radicals who decide to teach the wealthy a lesson by breaking into their homes just to unsettle them. But whileis pitiless. It would’ve been easy for this film to slide into a morality play—poor schlub robs rich assholes, hurrah!—but it’s no triumph of the proles. If anything, it’s a testimony to the amorality of the universe, awith no Marge Gunderson in sight.
But hostage situations rarely end with everyone going off on their merry ways unscathed. I won’t say more about what unfolds, except that there is a scene about 70 minutes in that shocked me so much I leapt off my couch. Jokes aside, this is a tart, nasty little thriller. Despite its modest scale, it leaves a powerfully astringent aftertaste.
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