Review of The Rental (2020) by Moviemitch96 — 02 Aug 2020

This is the directorial debut of Dave Franco, and stars his real-life wife Alison Brie ('Community', Netflix's 'GLOW'), along with Dan Stevens ('Beauty and the Beast') as a married couple who, along with the husband's younger brother and his girlfriend, decide to get away for the weekend in a cliffside rental home.

But things soon start to turn suspicious around them as they sense that someone might be watching them. The film and its cast and premise intrigued me, and the first half of the film started off promising enough, building up a tense and rather eerie tone and atmosphere.

However, much to my dismay, the film never really picked up or went anywhere interesting in the second half, as it began to seemingly lose its sense of direction. To cap it all off, the final 10 mins or so were far too vague and left too many unanswered questions, making the film an its ordeal simply feel random and pointless.

Overall, the film showed potential to begin with, but the whole thing was pretty much ruined by an underwhelming and increasingly predictable second half that lacks any true thrills, as well as an ending that leaves no motives or explanations to speak of, making it very difficult for me to care about everything that preceded it.