Why Windfall's Negative Reviews Are Wrong | Screen Rant
Warning! Spoilers ahead for Netflix's Windfall.
Viewers have been slamming Netflix’s new thriller, Windfall, writing negative reviews that claim the film is boring, but the reviews are wrong. While the highly-stylized film may not be for everyone, Windfall’s negative reviews are misleading, with many failing to understand the film’s artistic nods. As a throwback to classic thrillers of times gone by, Windfall excels in almost every way.
Debuting on the streamer on March 18th, Windfall is directed by The One I Love’s Charlie McDowell and showcases an all-star cast with straightforward yet oddly cryptic character names: Nobody, CEO, and Wife. In the opening scenes, Nobody (How I Met Your Mother’s Jason Segel), is conducting a rather vacation-like burglary, reclining on patio chairs while drinking orange juice fresh from the orchard on the gorgeous estate of absentee owners CEO (Jesse Plemons) and Wife (Lily Collins). However, when the couple arrives unexpectedly and catches Nobody, he takes them hostage in their home.
What unfolds after is a fascinating, well-acted psychological thriller immersed in the vintage stylings of Hitchcockian suspense. What’s more, the film’s limitations as a product of the Pandemic make it all the more impressive. Here’s a breakdown of why Windfall’s negative reviews are wrong, and why the stylized thriller is truly a remarkable film.
The New York Film Academy’s breakdown of Alfred Hitchcock’s elements of style offers a concise and thorough breakdown of the famed director’s approach to filmmaking and every element listed is beautifully executed in Windfall. Visual storytelling tops the list as Hitchcock began as a silent film director and developed visual methods of communicating with his audience that continued through his career. This can be seen from the first moment in Windfall when Nobody is seen lounging at the house, casually browsing through CEO and Wife’s belongings, immediately cluing the audience into the plot of the film without ever a word spoken. This impeccable visual storytelling continues as Nobody later discovers the camera that could incriminate him, in his repeatedly bending down to tie his boots, and in the final scenes of the film when shots of the murder weapons are shown before Wife turns the tables on both Nobody and CEO.
Another element of classic Alfred Hitchcock movies is one that has been a hot issue in Windfall’s negative reviews: the film’s score. While modern films approach scores as more of a supporting role in the film, meant to exist most times as something that is buried far down in the sound mix, Hitchcock saw the score as a main character in his films, as does Windfall. Breaking from modern-day backtracks, the Netflix thriller’s use of large crescendos in climactic scenes and dizzying, bounding beats during the chases is straight out of Hitchcock’s playbook.
The main complaint among Windfall’s negative reviews, however, is that the film is boring and that little happens in the film. But while modern thrillers in the vein of 2019’s 6 Underground with Ryan Reynolds (also categorized by Netflix as a thriller) may include more action and quick cuts, Windfall is positively brimming with suspense while staying true to its vintage style. Returning to the NYFA’s list of Hitchcockian elements, several of the list items support the style by which Windfall creates its tension beginning with a simple story: “Simple, linear stories allow the audience to easily follow along. Removing excess material and keeping each scene crisp was essential for Hitchcock. He knew that a confusing or abstract story would bore the audience, and streamlined his films to maximize suspense.”
Hitchcock’s camera work was among his most exercised methods of building tension and furthering the story (as is seen in his famous black-and-white film, Psycho). Hitchcock believed “that the camera should take on human qualities: it should roam and playfully look around the room for anything important. By panning a room and showing close-ups of objects, the camera allows the audience to see certain plot elements and feel like they’re involved in uncovering the story.” This is seen most concretely in Windfall’s shots of the statue (which is later revealed as a murder weapon), and of the shots of Wife’s feet (a source of major contention in Windfall’s negative reviews), which become symbolic of the choices she will make and her first step in her new direction.
While the cast of Windfall consists of a mere four characters, the film’s vision continues through suburb performances. Admittedly, Jason Segel is always Jason Segel; however, the slightly bumbling slacker character that he began with in Freaks and Geeks is at its best in Windfall. Lily Collins’ dark performance as Wife is spot-on and rather shocking for fans of her role in Emily in Paris, and Jesse Plemons’ CEO is a fresh and often comedic departure from his more stoic performance in last year’s Academy Award-winning The Power of the Dog. However, while the performances in the film were excellent, it is the acting as a whole, or rather as a style, that further lends itself to Windfall’s artistry with the actors seeming to truly understand the film’s genre and style.
While some of the negative reviews surrounding Windfall claim the cast’s performances are bland, the actors are perfect examples of Hitchcock's style as detailed by Aarhus University:
"A good screen actor, in Hitchcock's opinion, is an actor who does nothing with his face, but in a convincing way. Then it is up to the director, through the cutting, to show the exact meaning of the actor's face. This is pure cinema. And in pure cinema, dialogue is a secondary thing. In this way, the films of Alfred Hitchcock differ from the majority of films, in which the story consists of illustrated dialogue, or photographs of people talking."
This is seen in every performance in the film, but most astoundingly accomplished by Collins (one of Windfall’s producers, as she was for Emily in Paris as well). As the film progresses, few words are spoken as her put-on happiness begins to disintegrate and she draws closer to her breaking point. Under the intense scrutiny of prolonged close-ups, Collins’ facial expressions give little away, yet her distress is conveyed through the subtlety of her nonverbal acting and the film’s camerawork.
Furthering the extensive artistry that went into the making of Windfall, the conditions under which it was created further the film’s achievement: Windfall was an idea born of the pandemic and, as such, was created to be filmed entirely in one location with limited cast and crew. Even the escape scenes in Windfall are contained to the location’s sprawling property, conforming with Covid regulations at the time, but also (in a monumental creative strategy) furthering the audience’s feeling of imprisonment while simultaneously providing an escape through Windfall’s anything-but-boring 90-minute run.
Considering these elements, it may be that Windfall’s negative reviews stem from a matter of miscategorizing the content. While movies dubbed “arthouse” films are typically created in more of an independent film style with lesser-known actors and outside of the major studio system, they are commonly labeled as such because they have an unwavering artistic vision. This is certainly the case with Netflix’s Windfall, which masterfully delivers its art while offering a top-shelf cast and production.
Windfall is available on Netflix.