The gig economy, specifically ride-booking and vacation rental apps, has turned the social contract of the service industry upside down. For better or for worse, hailing a ride or renting a place now typically includes a personal flourish that might not be entirely welcome. Personally, I love when I get into a taxi, and the driver doesn’t bother to hang up their call. Sure, I appreciate service with a smile, but I’m also not looking for small talk. When I do end up chatting, it’s pretty harmless and mundane conversation, but on rare occasions, I’ve been shocked to find myself locked in a car with a total stranger who also happens to be a massive bigot. In fact, I’d hazard that most people have probably started a conversation with a driver or host that made them regret their booking. Writers Dave Franco and Joe Swanberg seize on this exact kind of experience to update the hotel stalker subgenre for the Airbnb generation. Norman Bates at least owned and operated a motel; now anyone can invite us into their home, and we go gladly.
Charlie (Dan Stevens) and Mina (Sheila Vand) are young, attractive, and successful. They just locked down seed funding for their startup, and they book a weekend getaway at a wildly expensive, remote beach house to celebrate. Charlie’s wife, Michelle (Alison Brie), is coming too. And his brother Josh (Jeremy Allen White), a “barely employed Lyft driver” who “got kicked out of college, and served jail time for nearly beating a guy to death outside of his frat house”. He also happens to be Mina’s boyfriend. So the two couples, excited about their weekend, hit the road together. But they haven’t even reached their rental before experiencing their first pang of doubt about the weekend. It would seem that their host, Taylor, might be racist. Upon meeting him, he exceeds expectations. Taylor is not only racist, but also aggressive. Their whole encounter with him is fraught with tension. It’s unsettling, but this is a celebratory weekend and the house is so nice that they quickly forget about him. So too, do we.
Aside from their somewhat disturbing encounter with Taylor, the first act of the film is largely preoccupied with the relationships between its foursome. Here, the majority of the tension is sexual; the suspense is all derived from secret longings. There is no terror or paranoia. The beautiful, windswept coast and oppressive fog certainly sets a tone, but were it not for the cinematography and score, one could forget that The Rental was a horror film. Rather, it smacks of a mumblecore outing: two couples exploring their romantic entanglements on a weekend getaway. In fact, Taylor’s unpleasantness could almost be chalked up as one more ugly element in a weekend that seems to be going sour. That is, until they find a hidden camera…
While the character drama fully supplants any horror in the first part of the film, it is at least not discrete from the rest of the movie. The discovery of the camera precipitates a series of poor choices, which are driven by the relationship complications developed early on. Here, The Rental finally shifts into thriller territory. However, this is a half measure, as it takes some more time to turn into the full-blown horror promised by the central conceit. The end result is a movie that feels rather disjointed.
Even with its tight runtime, I suspect that many viewers may find that the thriller and horror elements are too sparse throughout the relationship drama to keep them interested. And once the action does kick off, The Rental seems perplexingly unclear about what it wants to say. If Franco, who also directed, indeed intended to update hotel horror for gig economy getaways, then many elements of the protagonists’ ordeal seem incongruous with that mission. The choices the characters make, once under pressure, vary from stupid to nonsensical, and little of what they do seems to have any thematic relevance to a cautionary tale about the perils of private bookings.
While it falls short thematically due to an uneven narrative, The Rental is still a pretty enjoyable mumblecore romp. The character drama is well written and universally delivered with charisma by its likeable cast. And when he does bring the horror that was promised, Franco still manages to add a fresh twist to the genre. The Rental definitely feels scattered, but it’s a diverting 90 minutes. Think of it as the same weekend being ruined twice—first dramatically through interpersonal breakdown, then horribly, and more permanently.
The Rental is available on-demand through the usual channels now.