The Guest (C- or 1.5/4 stars)
Dan Stevens burst onto the scene 5 yrs. ago playing blonde-haired, blue-eyed, debonair Matthew Crawley in the global television phenomenon, Downton Abbey. Then ... he left DA to pursue other ventures and, the world cried out at his absence from the show. But Stevens impressed me in Broadway's production of The Heiress. He took a role in a Liam Neeson action flick. And now, he stars in an action/thriller titled 'The Guest' (directed by Adam Wingard, You're Next). The movie tells the story of a young soldier, David (Stevens), who has recently returned stateside. Oddly enough, the 1st thing he does is visit the grief-stricken mother, Laura (Sheila Kelley, mehh), of a recently fallen comrade named Caleb. David claims to have known Caleb & says he wants to deliver a final message of love to her.
Inexplicably and, rather quickly, Laura invites him to stay with her & her family. Over the course of the next few days, he gets to know them & subtly starts affecting their little humdrum lives; helping her son Luke (Brendan Meyer) with bullies at school & attending a drug-fueled party with her angsty daughter, Anna (Maika Monroe). However, even though Anna appears to be accepting of him {ahem and of his six-pack abs}, she still think there's something amiss about him and, decides to put in a few phone calls to confirm David's identity, only to find out that her awful suspicions of him might indeed be correct. And those phone calls? Well, they set off a chain reaction of increasingly deadly events. After a relatively sane, well-executed 1st 40 minutes ... silly mayhem ensues for the last 1/3 of the proceedings.
So frustrating. I was really digging 'The Guest' for quite a while. Dan Stevens is hypnotic as the enigmatic David; a man who's clearly not sane, but mesmerizing, nevertheless. Stevens was able to charm a character in one moment, then be deadly serious in the next; I never knew where his David was going ... loved that. I also loved the mystery aspect of the story; not knowing where the film was taking me. I felt empathy for some of the characters (even when they were atrociously acted by some). Also, there are some really AWESOME individual scenes. i.e., a sight gag involving David emerging from a steamy bathroom. Also, the way in which David dispatches Luke's classmate bullies in a local bar is ... amazing! Wingard is also great at showing many prickly character interactions.
But then the movie flies off the rails. The development of the story & the execution of it drop off dramatically -- I was even bored, at times. The potential of the story is not fully realized. The director wastes a lot of time on scenes that feel unnecessary to the core story (some of those boring stretches). And the wheels come completely off in the final 20 minutes with a series of gruesome, cheap & inconceivable moments of disbelief -- I HATED the final 20 minutes. Not to get too spoilery here but, I was confounded at the amount of people who were being killed-off in the story. It was as if the director/writers said, "F*** you characters, we really DON'T care about you, so, byeeeee". I didn't like that. The characters were treated like garbage. And it felt inauthentic to the story that was preceding it.
Ah, well. What can I say? Adam Wingard DOES bring splashes of creativity to a well-worn genre. I liked the use of 80s music throughout. And again, it appears that Dan Stevens has what it takes to entrance and lead a movie. He's the reason to see this film and, who knew he was such a foreboding action/physical presence, too? 'The Guest' is one of those rare films that starts so dang well, yet crashes & burns with such stunning ferocity that I can't quite believe what I just watched. Most critics disagree with me. But I'd like to think that I know a good movie from a botched one and, I think general audiences will be disappointed, as well.
Inexplicably and, rather quickly, Laura invites him to stay with her & her family. Over the course of the next few days, he gets to know them & subtly starts affecting their little humdrum lives; helping her son Luke (Brendan Meyer) with bullies at school & attending a drug-fueled party with her angsty daughter, Anna (Maika Monroe). However, even though Anna appears to be accepting of him {ahem and of his six-pack abs}, she still think there's something amiss about him and, decides to put in a few phone calls to confirm David's identity, only to find out that her awful suspicions of him might indeed be correct. And those phone calls? Well, they set off a chain reaction of increasingly deadly events. After a relatively sane, well-executed 1st 40 minutes ... silly mayhem ensues for the last 1/3 of the proceedings.
So frustrating. I was really digging 'The Guest' for quite a while. Dan Stevens is hypnotic as the enigmatic David; a man who's clearly not sane, but mesmerizing, nevertheless. Stevens was able to charm a character in one moment, then be deadly serious in the next; I never knew where his David was going ... loved that. I also loved the mystery aspect of the story; not knowing where the film was taking me. I felt empathy for some of the characters (even when they were atrociously acted by some). Also, there are some really AWESOME individual scenes. i.e., a sight gag involving David emerging from a steamy bathroom. Also, the way in which David dispatches Luke's classmate bullies in a local bar is ... amazing! Wingard is also great at showing many prickly character interactions.
But then the movie flies off the rails. The development of the story & the execution of it drop off dramatically -- I was even bored, at times. The potential of the story is not fully realized. The director wastes a lot of time on scenes that feel unnecessary to the core story (some of those boring stretches). And the wheels come completely off in the final 20 minutes with a series of gruesome, cheap & inconceivable moments of disbelief -- I HATED the final 20 minutes. Not to get too spoilery here but, I was confounded at the amount of people who were being killed-off in the story. It was as if the director/writers said, "F*** you characters, we really DON'T care about you, so, byeeeee". I didn't like that. The characters were treated like garbage. And it felt inauthentic to the story that was preceding it.
Ah, well. What can I say? Adam Wingard DOES bring splashes of creativity to a well-worn genre. I liked the use of 80s music throughout. And again, it appears that Dan Stevens has what it takes to entrance and lead a movie. He's the reason to see this film and, who knew he was such a foreboding action/physical presence, too? 'The Guest' is one of those rare films that starts so dang well, yet crashes & burns with such stunning ferocity that I can't quite believe what I just watched. Most critics disagree with me. But I'd like to think that I know a good movie from a botched one and, I think general audiences will be disappointed, as well.