Spoilers for The Rental ahead...
There's a lot of frustrating things about The Rental but by far the one that bothered me the most was how I was just supposed to buy the fact that anybody in their right mind would cheat on Alison Brie...
Dave Franco has struggled to find his footing for practically his entire career. He's a decent enough actor but none of his performances have been particularly memorable. Because of this, it's no surprise that Franco is trying to make a name for himself in a different realm- the world of directing. How did he fare? While there are definitely glimpses of promise on display for Dave Franco as a filmmaker, The Rental is a frustrating and conventional, albeit watchable, film that's unlikely to do much to put him on the map as a director.
The Rental follows two couples, Charlie and Michelle (Dan Stevens and Alison Brie, respectively) and Josh and Mina (Jeremy Allen White and Sheila Vand, respectively), who rent a vacation home for a weekend among growing infidelities and the feeling that host of the house (Toby Huss) may be spying on them.
The ensemble does a very good job of elevating their characters beyond the one-dimension each of them is written with. Dan Stevens and Alison Brie are excellent as always and this is my first exposure to the likes of Jeremy Allen White and Sheila Vand, but they both do great jobs as well. It's unfortunate that the script by Dave Franco and Joe Swanberg doesn't allow any of these undeniably talented actors to show off everything they're really capable of, as the characters themselves aren't the least bit interesting. Rather than allowing the characters to develop individually, each of their developments is defined by their relationships with other characters (thanks Joe Swanberg). Thus, it's extremely difficult to truly get attached to any of them. The film spends ample time on these relationships, so much so that the entire second act is basically a mumblecore relationship drama (thanks Joe Swanberg). While the choice to focus so heavily on this makes sense as much of the film's initial conflict comes from the varying relationships, they could've spent a chunk of this time allowing us to get to know each of these people apart from their partner. This further detriments the film by making the tonal shift from the second act to the third act all the more jarring. Not unlike the characters, the film has commitment issues. Commitment issues in regards to what it wants to be categorized as and, unfortunately, this attempt to combine the two genres ultimately feels disjointed.
The full-on slasher movie that The Rental becomes in the third act is certainly the most enjoyable part of the movie, though, and it's actually pretty effective. There are some well-executed jump scares and the atmosphere is incredibly tense, which can be attributed to Dave Franco's very competent direction. He falls into a lot of the same trappings as a lot of first-time directors and it felt very much like a first feature but overall, he did a solid job. This entire section of the film is quite fun...until the ending. The most frustrating aspect of The Rental is the fact that there is no true closure. The most fascinating element of slasher flicks is the finding out the motivation of the killer and who they are. We aren't given that here. It's never revealed who's behind the mask and why he's stalking random people who rent Airbnbs. Perhaps that was the intention, as to show that anybody can be watching us at any point, but it just felt so unsatisfying considering how much the film built everything up.
There are certainly worse films to watch right now than The Rental and considering the lack of new movies, it's nice just to have one. It's bogged down by it's poor genre juggling and unsatisfying payoff but it's not something that's painful to sit through. If you're able to endure the lull in the middle section, there's a pretty fun slasher flick waiting for you. The most I can say about it is that it made me never want to stay in an Airbnb ever again and assuming that was the intention, then major props must be given.
★★½
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