By: Andrew Wing
Windfall is a 2022 American thriller film directed by Charlie McDowell (most known for his 2014 film The One I Love) from a screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker (known for having written the 1995 classic Se7en) and Justin Lader. It stars Jason Segel (How I Met Your Mother, Forgetting Sarah Marshall), Lily Collins (Rules Don’t Apply, Emily in Paris), and Jesse Plemons (Breaking Bad, Fargo).
The film follows a man (Segel) who breaks into a tech billionaire’s empty vacation home, and just when he has completed his robbery, things suddenly go sideways when the arrogant mogul (Plemons) and his wife (Collins) arrive for a last-minute getaway.
It was released on March 18, 2022, by Netflix.
THE GOOD
Windfall definitely snuck up on me. I actually hadn’t even watched the entire trailer until just before starting the movie. But I did hear about it and saw that it was hitting Netflix, but what really made me want to watch this film was the fact that my main man, Jesse Plemons, was going to be in it. I’ve expressed my fandom for him in some of my other reviews such as Antlers (see my full review here) and The Power of the Dog (see my full review here), but with every role of his he continues to move higher up on favorite actors poll. And now that I’ve given you some context as to why I checked this movie out, let’s get into what I liked about it.
No surprise given what I just said, but Plemons was the standout performer in my opinion. He plays a character that is this arrogant rich tech billionaire and he absolutely crushed it. It was crazy to me how well he played the role because, despite his numerous roles as a “bad guy” like in Breaking Bad, I often associate him with playing these quiet and gentle characters that are often nice. But as he seems to do in all of his films as of late, he put his acting chops on full display in this. He was funny at times, but he was also crazy and intimidating at times and he honestly made the film for me. Plemon’s next project as of right now is set to be legendary director Martin Scorsese’s next film, Killers of the Flower Moon, and to say I am hyped for that would be a massive understatement.
Yes, Plemons was the best of the bunch in this on my end, but Lily Collins and Jason Segel were also phenomenal. I have never watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother, the show that Segel is primarily known for, but I have seen Forgetting Sarah Marshall and I Love You, Man so I know how funny he is. Segel really showed not only me but the world that he can also give great dramatic performances after the 2019 biographical drama film, Our Friend. His performance in Windfall just strengthens his case even more that he now needs to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor. He plays the robber in this film and he really really impressed me here. He was able to be scary and terrifying at times but was also able to make you sympathize with him and understand why he is doing what he is doing. As for Lily Collins, she also impressed me here. She is definitely the actor that I have seen the least out of this crop, but I know 2020 was a big year for her after starring in the Netflix series Emily in Paris for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Television Series. She was really good here as she played a character that experienced a ton of different emotions from start to finish and she conveyed them all perfectly. I’ll just say she definitely gained another fan out of me after watching her performance in this.
This movie had some great things going for it, but as you have already come to tell, the best thing was the acting. I absolutely loved the fact that this movie was the three of them just talking, so hats off to director Charlie McDowell for that. It was a fantastic opportunity for them to showcase their acting prowess and they did not let us down. However, I would like to mention some of the other things that I liked about Windfall, the first being the film’s score. The score was super haunting and I was just so into it right from the jump because literally from the opening credits, you feel the score right in your bones. It got me so excited and it had me locked in as it truly felt like a 1960s Hitchcock thriller but with color. Also, I thought the film looked pretty nice. I loved the location the film was shot in and the cinematography as a whole, and it goes without saying that the vacation home the film takes place in is incredible.
THE BAD
There is no denying that this movie is a good one, but I won’t lie, I felt it could’ve been great. And the reason I feel that way is mainly because it just fell flat for me. The first half of this movie was very intriguing as we got to know more about the characters and what is going on exactly and I was truly into what was taking place on the screen. But the film just falls flat in the second half due to what I think was a poor script and screenplay. It is shocking to say that because one of the writers for Windfall is Andrew Kevin Walker, the man responsible for writing David Fincher’s 1995 classic neo-noir psychological thriller Seven. The movie itself just lacked suspense and a clear destination and I just think they didn’t know what they wanted this to be.
I don’t know, watching this movie I just felt like it was working towards something amazing that was going to blow my mind. There were little bits of dialogue here and there they continuously kept hinting at something that was about to come to fruition. But what did end up happening, without giving it away, was something you got in the first twenty minutes of the film. It was frustrating because it felt as though the script was being written as the movie was being shot, and at one point they just ended it, and that’s why in my opinion, we get no clear ending.
THE VERDICT
Despite it falling flat in the second half, Windfall is still a respectable Hitchcockian-type thriller from Charlie McDowell that most will enjoy. The film’s score is absolutely haunting and it also features three great performances from Lily Collins, Jason Segel, and Jesse Plemons. This movie had a ton of potential with its amazing first act, and I think it could’ve been great, but unfortunately, it wasn’t. It just felt like this movie was building to something that never happened and that was a hard pill to swallow for me.
TED TAKES RATING - 6.8/10
Windfall is now available to watch on Netflix. Check out the latest trailer below.