“No Exit” is a play written by Jean-Paul Sartre in which one of the characters famously claims that “Hell is other people.” Well, Windfall, a recent Netflix movie, only lasts ninety minutes yet it fully explores this kind of hell where three different people are engaged in mind games that hurt. However, Charlie McDowell’s film has an unusual twist with the action taking place at a beautiful California mansion that is being invaded by two of its owners who are held hostage at gunpoint.
This efficient and acidic little film features only Jason Segel, Lily Collins and Jesse Plemons (not counting another character who appears for five minutes), but these actors really give their best performances. They are also joined on this project by McDowell himself, who co-wrote it with Segel. In fact, they are almost like bedfellows (and sometimes they are such – i.e., Collins and McDowell) as they have all been previously involved in some type of creative work together. Windfall is a wonderful example of Covid-era cinema made well with very few resources; it uses the same concept as many other movies produced during the pandemic, but it stands out.
With his glass of orange juice from the adjacent groves in hand, he wanders through a giant house. He leans reflectively against the windowpane while sipping juice amidst a beautiful pool surrounded by manicured lawns and costly facilities. There was no plan to follow as he walked around eating an orange here or looking at pictures there. He walks into an uber-luxurious bathroom complete with sliding doors to allow him access to expensive marble showers which our protagonist uses it as an open urinal This is not his home.
He took nothing except for an orange juice glass from there but just before closing up behind him feels something changing his mind to try robbing sometime later on in life quite on impulse anyhow. Tiptoeing around the room, he silently looks for anything of value. That mistake which is greed’s downfall serves as the impetus that drives Windfall from this point onward while its plot offers some interesting observations on social classes mixed with a lot of humor.
Jason Segel plays “Nobody,” which is what his character is called in the movie (though some sources refer to him as le cambrioleur, the French word for burglar, referring back to our earlier mention of Jean-Paul Sartre). This name fits well because nothing is ever known about him hereafter. Moreover, Collins portrays Wife and Plemons acts CEO suggesting they are largely symbolic figures standing in for something else and inviting interpretation.
Incredible actor Segel has been underrated incredibly much. You may know him best as the lovable goofball from comedies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall or How I Met Your Mother (which he wrote), but his acting and writing go far beyond these titles. He was also instrumental in making an unexpectedly poignant and enjoyable Muppets feature film; played David Foster Wallace so convincingly in End of the Tour that it might as well have been a documentary; and created a really cool TV show called Dispatches From Elsewhere that made me believe that magic was real. Essentially, he’s one of the most exciting thinkers alive today when considered against all odds.
To me, what he does in Windfall is doubly interesting because he literally has no backstory, nothing to work with whatsoever and yet he manages to create a rewarding and complex character. When interrupted by the homeowners, he’s forced to think on his feet at times not at all) and do what he can to remain in control of the situation as best as possible, working with CEO and Wife to get out of it safely. Unfortunately, the people that he is working with are hard.
Plemons goes into this role like a fox digging deep into the headiness of his character whilst trying simultaneously to ‘play’ his rich executive ‘houseguests’. Plemons doesn’t let himself be typecast; he can be winningly sympathetic playing intricately humane characters (Fargo, Power of the Dog, Friday Night Lights), but also plays a chillingly convincing psychopath (Breaking Bad, Black Mirror), and something scarily in between (I’m Thinking of Ending Things). In Windfall however, he takes on an entitled megalomaniacal CEO who isn’t a cartoon villainous but someone who has barely anything known about him.
The only piece of information really provided about CEO in Money is that they are wealthy from making billions off an algorithm for a tech company which basically helps other rich companies layoff their employees. He might stand for any famous billionaire or could even be taken as representative of those privileged few who resent being part of the “99%” group that is perceived negatively by society. “How can people be so mad at me?” Most people ask before finishing his own question without even realizing it. “I’m supposed to apologize for writing an algorithm that saves companies money and enriches the lives of hundreds of employees?”
Much like a play does most parts of this film, where criticism that it doesn’t take advantage cinema but instead feels more theatrical production (like Sartre’s No Exit”) may be well-founded. But, some scenes are just too powerful as they are. As three of them wait for a bag of cash worth $500 000 at breakfast, it’s a mirror of frustration facing the super wealthy (and their condescending indifference and disdain in reply). CEO laments “a society of “lazy fu**ing loafers and freeloaders,” in a Cartesian style saying, “I exist, therefore I am owed something.”
“Try being a rich white guy these days!” CEO shouts. “Everyone always thinks it must be real fu**ing nice […] There’s an infinite target on my back!” Nobody shakes his head with wonderment as he listens to CEO talking about himself like this. Perhaps he remembered one famous saying that goes when you’re used to privilege equality looks like oppression. Wife sits beside him, gawking at him while her hatred grows.
So far, Collins plays Wife in what is possibly the greatest performance ever in her career. Her writer/director husband gave her an excellent part, and Collins relishes the opportunity with gusto. It’s true she has mostly been great for many breezy romantic comedies (Emily in Paris, Love Rosie, Stuck in Love), but over time has turned out unexpectedly fierce performances that are emotionally intense as well; such as the anorexic protagonist of To the Bone and her work in Inheritance.
In Windfall, her comedic timing and natural magnetism almost distract from the fact that she’s playing a character who is completely transforming over the course of the film. The rich and more submissive (but equally entitled) Wife we see at the beginning of Windfall is deconstructed, broken, and laid bare, before coming back together at the startling conclusion of the movie. As Nobody and CEO struggle for dominance and power over the situation and everyone gets emotionally and psychologically manipulated, Wife gradually grows more and more sickened by her husband and upset over her life.
Collins admittedly has more to work with than Segel and Plemons, providing more backstory throughout Windfall as she bickers with CEO and is used by him to try and befriend Nobody, before growing to sympathize with him and ultimately questioning the entire nature of her life in a wonderfully developed existential crisis for a character.
The emotional centerpiece of the film is a fireside chat between her and Nobody, during which she tells the story of her wedding day and the moment in which she looked down at her feet, contemplating the utterly antithetical lives she would lead depending on if she turned away from this marriage or walked toward the altar that day. Shots of these feet reoccur throughout McDowell’s film, suggesting that Windfall is more or less her tale, and that perhaps Nobody represents those two lives; No one having no marriage or title (Nobody) versus somebody having a company owner (CEO).
The term ‘windfall’ means an unexpected and completely unearned profit or gain, but it also quite literally refers to something that gets blown down by the wind. “You’re so disgusting I’m sick,” Nobody tells CEO before he screams furiously: “and nothing feels fair! You have everything! And I don’t!” It’s an incredibly powerful scene done all in darkness where they were being tied up face to face while performing excellently well by Segel and Plemons. An apt argument is that anger and disgust are often fitting emotions towards injustice, inequality, evil triumphing, exploitation; the film explores this theme well.
It sometimes seems like everything is arbitrary, and nobody gets what they deserve. Life’s a windfall that way, with both goodness and suffering often unearned, and usually unexpected. Let’s not forget the second meaning of the term though. For even mighty trees may bow to an unexpected gust, crashing down in a violent windfall of sorts.
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