★★★★★
15 December 2014
This article is a review of 99 HOMES.Seen at the Toronto International Film Festival 2014. (For more information, click here.)
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“I didn’t kick you out, the bank did; I just represent it,” Rick Carver (Michael Shannon) to Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield)
A capitalist drama so heart pounding it might as well be classified as a thriller. Noses maybe turned up at the thought of being preached to. 99 HOMES is not a Ken Loachian essay (though there is nothing wrong with those), it is instead a slickly crafted, tense examination of the fallacy that is first world meritocracy, generally, and the American dream, specifically. Society sans safety net is what is being examined, coupled with morality and legality and their divergence.
A capitalist drama so heart pounding it might as well be classified as a thriller. Noses maybe turned up at the thought of being preached to. 99 HOMES is not a Ken Loachian essay (though there is nothing wrong with those), it is instead a slickly crafted, tense examination of the fallacy that is first world meritocracy, generally, and the American dream, specifically. Society sans safety net is what is being examined, coupled with morality and legality and their divergence.
Casting current Spider-Man (a.k.a. Andrew Garfield) as a struggling construction worker was a savvy move. Audiences not sympathetic to the down at heel, surely unaware that happenstance is a massive factor, are more likely to swallow the medicine if delivered by a likeable lead. (Garfield has arguably made amends for the execrable AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 earlier this year; and Shannon does the same for the equally dire MAN OF STEEL from 2013.)
A thumping, pulsating score (by Antony Partos and Matteo Zingales) kicks off proceedings. Suicide is the image that greets us. Camera roves to reveal a man who shot himself in his bathroom; actually no longer technically his. We meet the charismatic villain of the piece, Rick Carver; no classic villain, he deflects responsibility. His purpose is to demonstrate how the mechanics of eviction work. (Carver does vape; cinema’s current shorthand for being a douche bag – see also MAPS TO THE STARS.) Carver, a private contractor, was there, with sheriffs who address him as if a superior, to remove the residents for failure to keep up mortgage repayments. Totalitarian menace emanates from the scene. Stanley Kubrick and David Fincher would surely be proud at the overwhelming unseen forces.
Introduced on a construction site, Dennis Nash and colleagues are let go mid build; left unpaid for two weeks. The bottom has fallen out of the industry. In court with mother Lynn (Laura Dern) and young son Connor (Noah Lomax), and explaining that the bank told him not to pay, they are given 30 days to vacate their family home. Criticism of a legal framework not only failing to protect the vulnerable, but actually appearing to be in cahoots with a callous authority, is only just beginning in 99 HOMES. Financial institution underhanded behaviour is one piece of the unchecked avarice puzzle on display here. Blame is dished, and overtly argued by a scene-chewing Shannon. “Don’t get emotional about property,” “America doesn’t bail out losers,” Carver opines.
Inevitably comes the turn for the Nash family to face Carver. Watching a family given 10 minutes to pack up their valuables, while their lives’ possessions are strewn on the front lawn and their home sealed is stomach churning. Inability to empathise is surely a test for audience humanity. Credit shot, the Nashs have to move to a motel catering for the similarly displaced. That the world’s richest can do it to its own people is unlikely to be lost.
Orlando, Florida is the setting. Mansions and pools reinforcing the wealth divide. Dennis believes $500 worth of tools were stolen by one of Carver’s goons, and goes to confront. Dismissed and threatened with police intervention Carver also offers Dennis a job at the same time, to utilise the latter’s construction skills to repair the homes under the former’s remit. Dealing with the devil as moral conundrum is being asked of a person whose choices are dwindling. BREAKING BAD territory has been entered, and 99 HOMES holds its own unlike too many other projects. Don’t be soft, everyone has a sob story, you’re on the side of the law, Carver tells Nash. Self-justification/deception is energetically and adroitly presented.