Reviewing Windfall
Desperation and Consequences in 97 Minutes or Less
Spoilers Ahead.
The other night I watched a new Netflix movie, Windfall.¹ It was quite enjoyable. A few days prior, I was thinking how I hadn’t seen Jason Segel in any recent release, and then I saw this movie on the Netflix homepage. I’m also a fan of Collins and Plemmons, so I watched it. The film stars Jesse Plemmons and Lily Collins (who I just discovered–though it seems this was widely known–is Phil Collins’ daughter) alongside Segel and it was directed by her husband, Charlie McDowell.
Windfall is a basic, simple film in the best way. It lacks the action sequences, green screens, and computer graphics found in so many blockbuster movies. It’s a film that probably wouldn’t have been produced by a traditional movie production company, so good on Netflix for picking it up.
It’s the type of movie real cinema-lovers now yearn for. A “back to basics” “chuck three actors onto a set and see what happens” type of movie, and it succeeds in its intended purpose for the most part.
Tension builds–the term “slow burn” may be used here in its authentic sense, not just to describe a genuinely slow and uninteresting movie–although it doesn’t quite build enough to fully justify its climax.
