99 Homes

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🎙️ EPISODE 487: 06.13.22 This film manages to do and be so many odd things at once. It's a hyper-normcore, boilerplate drama about something that feels like it could have been pulled from the news (shot in 2014, it depicts fictional events set in 2010). It somehow comes across as explicitly political but in actuality, its politics are vague at best, and stilted and weird at worst. It features three legitimately great actors but gives the best of them (Laura Dern) nearly nothing to do/work with. And yet, somehow, I found it to be eminently watchable (the first half at least).

Helmed by a man Roger Ebert once called "the new director of the decade," 99 Homes completely escaped me; I don't even have a vague sense of it existing on the periphery of my life. It's as if it were conjured by an A.I. Computer, give me movie like would have been made in 2014 mainstream + quasi topical. Thank you. In the end, it doesn't seem to have much of a point beyond, "capitalism is bad but maybe, sometimes, it's not so bad?" But for all the Shan- and GarfHeads out there, it isn't completely void. The latter was born to be the douche villain and the former seems to adapt to most any role with his boyish charm. It's the dialogue that's mainly holding 'em back. But for completists looking to fill out their collection or watchlists, it's fine. It was actually a welcome departure from the slog most of these Monday reviews have been.

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 486 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 488 ⫸

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99 Homes is a 2014 American drama film directed by Ramin Bahrani, written by Bahrani and Amir Naderi, and starring Andrew Garfield, Michael Shannon, Tim Guinee, and Laura Dern. Set in Florida, during the Great Recession, the film follows single father Dennis Nash (Garfield) and his family as they are evicted from their home by businessman Rick Carver (Shannon), leading to Nash choosing to help Carver in evicting people out of their homes in exchange for his family's home. Bahrani dedicated the film to the late film critic Roger Ebert. It was released on August 29, 2014.