Dave Franco Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Now You See Me: Now You Don’t’ (2025), starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Isla Fisher, Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa, Ariana Greenblatt, Rosamund Pike and Morgan Freeman

November 11, 2025

by Carla Hay

Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Dominic Sessa, Dave Franco, Justice Smith, Isla Fisher and Ariana Greenblatt in “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” (Photo by Katalin Vermes/Lionsgate)

“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” (2025)

Directed by Ruben Fleischer

Culture Representation: Taking place in various parts of the world, the action film “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” (the third movie in the “Now You See Me” franchise) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people, Asians and Latin people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: The Four Horsemen, a group of rogue vigilante American magicians, reunite and join forces with three younger American magicians to take down a wealthy South African heiress who launders money through her diamond company.

Culture Audience: “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the “Now You See Me” franchise and viewers who don’t mind watching overstuffed and inferior sequels.

Rosamund Pike in “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” (Photo courtesy by Katalin Vermes/Lionsgate)

“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” falls into a sequel trap of having too many characters and not enough of a good story. This action sequel about vigilante magicians gets increasingly convoluted and ridiculous with superhuman antics and stale jokes. “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” also uses the desperate tactic of bringing back cast members from previous “Now You See Me” movies as “surprise” cameos that aren’t very surprising at all because these characters are mentioned several times in the movie before they make their “surprise” appearances.

Directed by Ruben Fleischer, “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” was written by Seth Grahame-Smith, Michael Lesslie, Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese. The movie is the third in the “Now You See Me” series, which began with 2013’s “Now You See Me” and continued with 2016’s “Now You See Me 2.” All of these movies aren’t very good, but “Now You See Me” is the best of the three because it had an original story that the sequels are just repackaging with more tangled plots and additional characters.

It’s somewhat necessary to know what happened in the first two “Now You See Me” movies to fully understand the plot of “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.” But for people who know nothing about any of these movies, the basic information to know is that the core group of magicians are called the Four Horsemen, who have various specialties and are undercover vigilantes.

J. Daniel Atlas (played by Jesse Eisenberg), the arrogant self-appointed leader of the Four Horsemen, is a master illusionist. Merritt McKinney (played by Woody Harrelson) is a cynical hypnotist, mind reader and psychic. Henley Reeves (played by Isla Fisher), Daniel’s former assistant and ex-girlfriend, is an expert escapist who is the most optimistic of the quartet. Jack Wilder (played by Dave Franco) is a friendly sleight-of-hand illusionist, an impersonator, an expert locksmith and a pickpocket.

The Four Horsemen work for a mysterious vigilante magician group called The Eye, which steals from the rich and gives to the poor. In “Now You See Me 2,” Henley was replaced by Lula May (played by Lizzy Caplan), a master of disguises, who became romantically involved with Jack, but Lula and Jack are no longer a couple. Two people who’ve crossed paths with the Four Horsemen are Dylan Rhodes (played by Mark Ruffalo) and Thaddeus Bradley (played by Morgan Freeman), who have various identities in this movie series, due to plot twists.

Spoiler alert for those who don’t know what happened in the first two “Now You See Me” movies: In the first “Now You See Me” movie, Thaddeus was a magic debunker but was later revealed to be the Grand Master of The Eye. Dylan was an agent for the FBI and had a secret vendetta that was eventually revealed. In “Now You See Me 2,” Dylan (no longer with the FBI) became the supervisor of the Four Horsemen.

In “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t,” it’s explained that Dylan is in prison on corruption charges. Thaddeus is now retired from The Eye, but he still remains connected to The Eye in the occasional role of a consultant. Thaddeus is in the movie for less than 20 minutes in “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.”

The movie’s sound mixing is absolutely terrible, beginning with the very first scene, where the volume on the dialogue is too low, but the score music obnoxiously blares too loudly and nearly drowns out what people are saying on screen. This problem happens repeatedly throughout the movie. Anyone seeing “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” with theater-quality audio should know that this audio problem is not the fault of the equipment system that’s playing the movie. The problem is the movie’s sound mixing, which really is that bad.

“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” begins at a warehouse party in New York City’s Brooklyn borough, where an excited crowd has gathered to watch the reunion of the original Four Horsemen, who disbanded nearly 10 years ago. But surprise! It’s all an illusion concocted by a trio of magicians in their 20s who are Four Horsemen fanatics and want to be just like the Four Horsemen.

Bosco LeRoy (played by Dominic Sessa), the cocky leader of this young trio, is a master illusionist and a failed actor, who dropped out of Juilliard when he couldn’t pay the tuition. June (played by Ariana Greenblatt) is a brash expert locksmith who got kicked out of every boarding school she attended when she was underage. Charlie (played by Justice Smith) is an introverted orphan who learned magic tricks from the magic shop where he works.

Daniel finds out about the Four Horsemen reunion hoax and who caused this scam. And faster than you can say “stupid sequel,” he tracks down Bosco, June and Charlie that night. Daniel tells them that he was sent by The Eye to recruit Bosco, June and Charlie to work with Daniel on stealing the Heart Diamond, which is reportedly the most valuable diamond in the world.

The Heart Diamond is owned by Vanderberg Corp., a South African company that publicly has a prestigious image. But in the underground criminal network, Vanderberg Corp. has a reputation for being a money launderer that sells over-priced diamonds to fund terrorists and other criminals. It isn’t long before the heroes of the story don’t just want to steal the Heart Diamond. They also want to take down Vanderberg Corp. and its evil leader.

The CEO and largest shareholder of Vanderberg Corp. is Veronika Vanderberg (played by Rosamund Pike), a “cold as ice” femme fatale who inherited the position from her deceased father Peter. Besides being involved in covert criminal activities, Veronika has another dirty secret: She was responsible for the death of a boy 15 years ago.

This secret haunts Veronika, who has been getting phone calls from a mystery blackmailer who knows this secret and theatens to expose it. The blackmailer’s voice is disguised in these phone calls. All it means is that “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” makes it obvious that this secret will be part of a big plot development in the movie.

Bosco, June and Charlie are star-struck by Daniel and are eager to work with him. But what this trio of younger magicians really want is a reunion of the Four Horsemen. And that’s exactly what happens when Daniel reluctantly reunites with Merritt, Henley and Jack so that they can all work with Bosco, June and Charlie on this new mission.

The globe-trotting misson takes them to various countries, such as the United States, France, Belgium, and the United Arab Emirates. (The movie was actually filmed in Hungary and in the United Arab Emirates capital of Abu Dhabi.) Lots of disguises, generation-gap jokes, silly-looking stunts and cringeworthy dialogue then take up the rest of the movie. Stanley is crankier and more insufferable than ever before. He gets into conflicts with just about everyone on his team, especially Bosco, who probably irks Stanley because Bosco reminds Stanley of a younger version of Stanley.

“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” has some very choreographed action scenes that will no doubt thrill some viewers. But too many of the action scenes over-rely on unrealistic-looking visual effects that make these characters look like more like non-human superheroes instead of human magicians. Most of the original “Now You See Me” cast members look like they’re only in “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” for their salaries, and they give mediocre performances because there’s no real personal growth to these characters.

June and Charlie spend entirely too much of their screen time acting like awestruck fans of the Four Horsemen. Bosco eventually gets over feeling star-struck when he sees the flaws in the Four Horsemen and why the group’s interpersonal problems end up resurfacing during this reunion. Sessa’s performance as Bosco fares the best in combining the comedic and dramatic parts of his character’s personality. Pike looks like she’s having fun portraying the glamorous chief villain Veronika, but at times, Veronika looks like she would be more at home in an “Austin Powers” movie.

“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” is an example of mishandling the concept of “more is better.” The “Now You See Me” franchise has gone way past being about a group of ragtag magicians who operate under the radar in their Robin Hood-type of charity. This franchise has turned into an international spy series, where the magician protagonists are celebrities who get caught up in so many high-profile tricks, it’s hard to believe that they can’t be detected when they’re supposedly undercover. Just like a self-absorbed, has-been celebrity with a bloated ego and nothing creatively original to offer, “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” thinks that merely existing should be enough, when it’s just re-using the same old tricks with different character names.

Lionsgate will release “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” in U.S. cinemas on November 14, 2025.

Review: ‘Regretting You,’ starring Allison Williams, Mckenna Grace, Dave Franco, Mason Thames, Scott Eastwood and Willa Fitzgerald

October 22, 2025

by Carla Hay

“Regretting You”

Directed by Josh Boone

Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional city of Dylan, North Carolina, in 2024 and 2025 (with flashbacks to 2007), the dramatic film “Regretting You” (based on the novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Asian people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A recent widow finds out that her husband and her sister, who died in a car crash together, were having an affair with each other, and the widow’s teenage daughter rebels against her by dating a fellow student against her mother’s wishes.

Culture Audience: “Regretting You” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the book on which the movie is based, and corny melodramas about “difficult” romances.

Allison Williams and Dave Franco in “Regretting You” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

“Regretting You” is the cinematic equivalent of an overstuffed Baked Alaska. Even with a talented cast, this drama’s tone is too sugary for the subject matter of finding love during grief. A soap-opera-length story is crammed into a feature-length film. The last 15 minutes of the movie are especially horrible at how the movie glosses over and neatly wraps up difficult traumas and messy life transitions.

Directed by Josh Boone and written by Susan McMartin, “Regretting You” is adapted from Colleen Hoover’s 2019 novel of the same name. The movie takes place in the fictional small city of Dylan, North Carolina. (Dylan’s population is a little more than 38,000 people.) “Regretting You” was actually filmed in the Georgia cities of Atlanta and Decatur. Even though most of the characters in the movie grew up in North Carolina, no one in this movie’s cast sounds like they’re from North Carolina. It’s not the only thing in the movie that looks phony.

“Regretting You” begins with a flashback to 2007, when two high-school couples go on a double date to a beach party. Traditional “good girl” Morgan Davidson (played by Allison Williams) and her free-spirited younger sister Jenny Davidson (played by Willa Fitzgerald) are at the party with their respective boyfriends. Morgan’s boyfriend is confident and popular Chris Grant (played by Scott Eastwood), while Jenny’s boyfriend is quiet and slightly nerdy Jonah Sullivan (played by Dave Franco), who is secretly in love with Morgan. Chris, Morgan and Jonah are in their last year of high school, while Jenny is either in her second or third year of high school.

Morgan seems to be aware that she and Jenny have ended up with boyfriends who have personalities that are the opposites of who Morgan and Jenny are. Morgan says so when she jokingly asks Jonah, “How did we end up with our opposites?” Chris is a little bit rude to Morgan when he tells her that he likes her better when she’s drunk. At this party, there’s something else that’s occupying Morgan’s thoughts that’s bigger than Chris’ disrepectful remark. Before going to the party, Morgan took a home pregnancy test and found out that she’s pregnant.

“Regretting You” then fast-forwards 17 years later to 2024. Morgan (whose last name is now Grant) and Chris are now the married parents of 16-year-old Clara Grant (played by Mckenna Grace), who wants to become an actress. The movie never really shows Clara making much of an effort to be an actress, exept for a few brief clips of her reciting lines. Conversations in the movie reveal that Morgan and Chris got married not long after they found out that Morgan was pregnant.

Meanwhile, Jonah is now a teacher at Dylan High School, his alma mater. After he graduated from high school, Jonah moved away and cut off contact with his friends from high school. When Jonah’s father died, Jonah came back to Dylan to attend the funeral.

Jonah and Jenny reconnected at the funeral, they had a sexual encounter, and she got pregnant with their infant son Elijah from that encounter. (The role of baby Elijah is played by twins William Burnham Simmons and Ryan Conner Simmons.) Jonah and Jenny began dating again after this unplanned pregnancy. Jonah moved back to Dylan, he and Jenny moved in together, and they have recently gotten engaged.

The present-day scenes begin with these family members gathered for Morgan’s birthday party, except for Clara, who is running late. Clara is driving on a road when she sees Miller Adams (played by Mason Thames), the schoolmate she’s had a crush on for quite some time. Miller is in on the side of the road and holding a Dylan city limit sign. He indicates that he’s looking for a car ride, so Clara stops.

Miller explains that he needs help moving the sign because his favorite pizza place won’t deliver outside Dylan’s city limits. Miller lives just right outside of Dylan, so he’s been moving the city limit sign so that pizza can get delivered to the house where Dylan lives with his widower grandfather Hank Adams Sr. (played by Clancy Brown), who has some respiratory-related health issues. (Hank is seen wearing oxygen tubes.) It’s later revealed that Hank has cancer.

Clara is secretly thrilled that she’s talking to Miller, who seems to like her too. Miller has a girlfriend named Shelby, who graduated from their high school the year before. Shelby is never seen in the movie, but she frequently calls Miller to check up on him because she’s a nagging and jealous girlfriend. Miller and Clara mildly flirt with each other while pretending that they’re not romantically attracted to each other. And you know what that eventually means in a movie like “Regretting You.”

During their conversation in the car, Clara (who is a high-achieving student) finds out that Miller (who is an average student) is an aspiring filmmaker. Clara tells him that she wants to be an actress, but Clara’s mother Morgan thinks that Clara should choose a more stable career. Clara says that she applied to a drama school anyway because she wants to go to this school instead of a regular university. Clara encourages Miller to pursue his filmmaking dreams.

Clara tells Miller she’s in a hurry to get to her mother’s birthday party. During this sign relocation, one of Clara’s flip-flop shoes accidentally falls into some mud. After they finish what they set out to do with the city limit sign, Miller asks Clara to give him a car ride back to his place. He introduces her to his grandfather and gives her $10 to buy a new set of flip-flops. After Clara leaves, she’s elated to see that Miller has started following her on social media.

Morgan is annoyed that Clara is late to the party. Morgan is also concerned that Clara was with Miller because Miller’s father Hank Adams Jr. is in prison for drug dealing. Miller’s mother died when Miller was a child. Miller is a student of Jonah, who assures Morgan that Miller is a good kid. Morgan isn’t entirely convinced and wants Clara to date someone who comes from a family that doesn’t have the stigma of having a convicted criminal in the family.

Morgan quickly forgives Clara now that the family is all together for the birthday party. It seems like a picture-perfect party, but things are not always what they appear to be. Clara’s relationship with Morgan is somewhat strained because she thinks Morgan is too strict and controlling. Clara confides in Jenny more than Morgan about Clara’s personal life. Clara also feels emotionally closer to her father Chris than with Morgan.

As already revealed in the “Regretting You” trailer, tragedy strikes the family shortly after this birthday party. Chris and Jenny are killed in a car accident where Chris was driving. Jenny and Chris had lied to their family members, by saying they would be at their respective jobs at the time of the accident. The fact that Chris and Jenny were in the same car at the time of the accident is an indication that they were having an affair.

Jonah and Morgan later find proof of this affair. At first, Morgan is more in denial about it than Jonah is, but they both eventually accept the awful truth. Morgan is afraid of Clara finding out this scandalous secret, so she and Jonah agree not to tell Clara. Meanwhile, Clara and Miller get emotionally closer to each other. Jonah and Morgan also become closer, as Jonah encourages Morgan to revive her career aspirations to be an interior designer.

“Regretting You” is a movie that has no suspense whatsoever about what’s going to happen. (The movie’s trailer gives away almost the entire plot.) And although the principal cast members do the best they can, the screenplay they have to work with meanders and stumbles in many places.

The movie’s comic relief usually comes with the character of Clara’s best friend Lexie (played by scene-stealer Sam Morelos), who is more worldly than virgin Clara. Lexie has some one-liners that are laugh-out-loud funny. Other lines of dialogue from other characters are unintentionally funny because they’re so corny and cringeworthy. The movie clumsily struggles to blend the joys of new romance with the sadness of grief.

One of the biggest failings of “Regretting You” is how it makes the grieving process so trivial and overshadowed, in service of having four people rush into romances not long after the deaths of Chris and Jenny. In real life, there’s no official timeline on how long it should take to grieve the death of a loved one, but it seems like the movie’s priorities are warped. For example, later in the movie, Clara gets more upset about being grounded by Morgan than Clara is upset about losing her father and her aunt: the two people whom Clara admired most in life.

The movie has a sappy teen romance that’s forced into a story where family grief becomes just another sidelined plot device. Even worse is how “Regretting You” handles the changing relationship between Morgan and Jonah. This is the type of movie where certain people decide that they’re in love with each other after kissing each other for the first time. It all looks so fake, no matter how much the cast members try to be convincing. (Grace and Franco fare the best in their acting performances.) “Regretting You” is ultimately more interested in schmaltz than substance and has many questionable and eye-rolling choices that oversimplify what would be a painful mess in the real world.

Paramount Pictures will release “Regretting You” in U.S. cinemas on October 24, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on November 25, 2025.

Review: ‘Together’ (2025), starring Dave Franco and Alison Brie

July 28, 2025

by Carla Hay

Alison Brie and Dave Franco in “Together” (Photo by Ben King/Neon)

“Together” (2025)

Directed by Michael Shanks

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed part of the United States, the horror film “Together” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: After moving from a large city to a rural area, two live-in lovers accidentally fall into a mysterious cave and are able to climb out, but strange things begin happening to their bodies, which start to act like magnets to each other.

Culture Audience: “Together” will appeal primarily to people who fans of stars Dave Franco and Alison Brie and body horror movies that offer a suspenseful and sometimes comedic look at coupledom.

“Together” is a rare horror movie that seamlessly blends unsettling body horror with darkly amusing observations about couples in co-dependent relationships. The movie takes a few unexplained shortcuts but is mostly suspenseful. There are a number of ways that “Together” could have ended. And the movie’s ending is not what most people would guess.

Written and directed by Michael Shanks, “Together” is his feature-film directorial debut and had its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. The movie centers on a couple in love but in a relationship that has grown somewhat stagnant and is put to the test when they literally can’t get away from each other. Viewers who are expecting a full explanation for the superatural occurences in the movie won’t get complete answers, but there’s enough information revealed to offer enough glimpses into why all horror is taking place.

“Together” begins by showing a wooded area in an unnamed part of the United States. (“Together” was actually filmed in Australia.) A search party with dogs is taking place for a missing couple named Keri (played by Sarah Lang) and Simon (played by Shanks), who lived in the area and suddenly vanished. The movie eventually reveals what probably happened to this couple.

Meanwhile, another couple is shown at a going-away party at the couple’s house from which they are moving. Tim (played by Dave Franco) and Millie (played by Alison Brie), are in their 30s who live together and have been dating each other for nine years. Alison and Tim are moving from an unnamed city to a rural area because Alison got a job as an elementary school teacher in this year. Tim is a musician who used to be in a band with a record deal but he’s now an independent solo artist who’s working on a solo album but he will occasionally hire himself out for touring jobs.

That’s exactly what happens when Millie’s musician brother Luke (played Jack Kenny) offers Tim a job as a guitarist to tour with Luke’s band. It’s a job that Tim accepts without much convincing that has to be done Luke also mentions to Tim that Tim should consider getting record deal because a record company would be able to better fund a tour.

It’s not said out loud, but it’s obvious: Tim doesn’t have a steady income, while Millie does. Tim isn’t too keen about moving out of the city, but he has to make this relocation, in order to support Millie and her career decision. During the course of the movie, it becomes apparent that Tim’s financial insecurity is at least some of the reason why there are some cracks in the relationship between Tim and Millie.

The cracks begin to show at the party when, as their gathered friends are watching in the living room, Millie gets down on one knee in font of Tim, mimes opening an invisible box with an invisible engagement ring, and asks him if he’ll spend the rest of his life with her. A visible shocked Tim doesn’t say anything at first. Awkward.

Tim then snaps out of his hesitation and says yes. But he took too long to answer. And his response looks forced and faked. Millie and everyone else in the room can sense it too. It doens’t completely ruin the party, but the mood definitely changes. Later, after the party is over, Tim and Millie are in bed, and he tells he’s sorry for being a jerk. Millie seems to accept his apology.

As time goes on, Tim is show to be more the more self-absorbed and less-committed partner in this relationship. Millie has some issues too. For example, she can be passive aggressive in her communication by expecting Tim to anticipate in advance what she wants instead of coming right out and telling him directly. Millie’s quasi-marriage proposal is an example of that passive-aggressiveness. She wants Tim to propose marriage to her, and that was her way of “nudging” him to do it without telling him directly.

Millie settles in quickly at her new job, where she strikes up a rapport with a friendly co-worker named Jamie (played by Damon Herriman), who happens to the closest neighbor to Millie and Tim in the wooded area where they live. One day, Millie and Tim take a hike in the woods. Tim notices a bell hanging on a tree. The bell has a carving of a sun on it.

Tim falls down in a hole and takes Millie with him when she tries to pull him out of the hole. Their cell phone can’t get signals where they are in this part of the woods. Inside the hole is a small cave, where Tim and Millie see a bell with a carving of a sun on it. It’s the same type of bell that Tim saw earlier. The cave also has some broken church pews that are scattered around the area.

There’s also a large puddle of what looks like fresh water in the cave. Tim takes a drink first and tells Millie that the water tastes fine. She also drinks some of the water, but not as much as Tim. Millie and Tim spend the night in the cave. And the next morning, they find out that there’s a unknown sticky substance that made the sides of their legs stuck together.

Tim and Millie painfully pull their legs apart, which leaves minor injuries. Millie and Tim are then able to climb out of the cave hole. Which begs the question: Why couldn’t they pull themselves out of the hole earlier?

At this point, if you’ve seen the trailers for “Together” or know that this is a body horror movie, you can guess how much of the movie will proceed. Tim’s and Millie’s bodies start acting like magnets to each other, with each incident getting progressively worse. As shown in the movie, Tim has past traumatic issues about his deceased parents that cause him to have nightmares. Millie’s parents are still alive and plan to eventually visit Millie and Tim in the couple’s new home.

Franco and Brie—who are a married couple in real life and who are two of the producers of “Together”—carry the movie with their naturalistic performances in increasingly bizarre situations. There are some body contortions and various “body fusions” that are intended to be cringeworthy, but some of these scenes are actually very funny. “Together” has some clever physical manifestations of being “stuck” in a relationship. In many ways, “Together” isn’t just about being a couple in a co-dependent romance. It’s also about what sacrifices can be made in the name of love.

Neon will release “Together” in U.S. cinemas on July 30, 2025. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on July 21 and July 23, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on August 26, 2025.

Review: ‘The Rental’ (2020), starring Dan Stevens, Alison Brie, Sheila Vand and Jeremy Allen White

July 24, 2020

by Carla Hay

Dan Stevens, Sheila Vand and Jeremy Allen White in “The Rental” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“The Rental” (2020)

Directed by Dave Franco

Culture Representation: Taking place in Oregon and in California, the horror flick “The Rental” features a predominantly white cast (with one character of Middle Eastern heritage) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: Two couples rent a cliffside vacation home for a weekend and find themselves spied on and stalked by a mysterious stranger.

Culture Audience: “The Rental” will appeal primarily to people who like suspenseful yet formulaic slasher flicks that have better-than-average acting.

Alison Brie in “The Rental” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

It might not be a widely known fact, but the 2020 horror film “The Rental” (directed by Dave Franco) has a coincidentally similar plot to the 2019 horror film “The Rental,” directed by Tim Connolly. Both movies are about two men and two women who rent a house for a weekend, only to become targets of a deranged killer. (In Connolly’s “The Rental,” the house is in the mountains, while in Franco’s “The Rental,” the house is perched on a treacherous oceanside cliff.)

Franco’s “The Rental” has gotten more attention than Connolly’s “The Rental” because it’s Franco’s feature-film directorial debut, after he’s spent years as an actor best known for co-starring in movies such as “Neighbors,” “21 Jump Street” and “The Disaster Artist.” Franco isn’t an actor in “The Rental,” but he’s one of the producers, and he co-wrote the screenplay with independent film veteran Joe Swanberg.

“The Rental” doesn’t have an original concept—there have been numerous horror movies about a killer who goes after people in an isolated house—but the movie does have above-average acting talent in its very sparsely populated cast. The actors make the best out of their roles in a movie that starts out as a psychological drama and then ends up being a formulaic horror film.

In Franco’s “The Rental,” a sleek but isolated cliffside home in an unnamed Oregon city has been rented for a weekend so that two couples can celebrate a recent milestone. Ambitious alpha male Charlie (played by Dan Stevens) and his intelligent business partner Mina Mohamnadi (played by Sheila Vand) have just received a great deal of investor money (the movie doesn’t say how much) to fund their start-up company in northern California. (The movie also doesn’t say what is the company’s industry.)

Mina is dating Charlie’s troubled younger brother Josh (played by Jeremy Allen White), while Charlie is married to loving and supportive Michelle (played by Alison Brie, who is married to Franco in real life). They all live far-enough away in California from the rental house in Oregon, that their road trip takes several hours to get there.

The dynamics between these two couples are established early on in the story, so viewers know about the underlying tensions in the relationships. Before they go on their road trip, Charlie and Michelle discuss Mina and Josh’s fairly new romance. It’s not stated in the movie exactly how long Charlie and Michelle have been married, but they’ve been together for about five to eight years, based on conversations that happen later in the film.

In a private conversation in their bedroom, Michelle remarks to Charlie that she can’t believe she’s going on a vacation with Josh. Charlie makes a cynical remark that the relationship between Mina and Josh probably won’t last because Charlie thinks Josh and Mina are a mismatched couple. Michelle is more optimistic and says that Josh seems “motivated” now that he’s been dating Mina, whom she calls “the total package.”

Why is there all of this negativity about Josh? It’s because he’s been struggling to get his life together after being an aimless troublemaker. He got expelled from college for nearly beating a guy to death in front of a frat house, and Josh spent time in prison for this assault. Josh is currently working as a part-time Lyft driver while taking some night classes.

Michelle comments on how Josh’s romance with Mina seems to have changed him for the better: “I’ve never seen him like this. He really loves her. I think it’s sweet.” Charlie replies, “Of course he loves her. He hit the fucking jackpot.” And why does Charlie think Mina is such a great catch?

The opening scene of the film shows Charlie and Mina (who is the CEO of her and Charlie’s start-up company) in their office, looking at house rentals on the same computer. They are on a website that is not named, but it’s clearly a website that is like Airbnb, the popular online company that allows home owners to be their own real-estate agents in deciding which of the website’s registered members will get to rent out their homes. The cliffside house, which is Charlie and Mina’s first choice, is a little of out their price range, but Charlie and Mina decide to reward themselves by splurging on the rental.

Based on their comfortable body language with each other (they’re leaning in to look at the computer closely together) and based on how they’re talking, it would be easy to assume that Charlie and Mina are a couple. Does this mean there’s some sexual tension between Charlie and Mina? Of course there is. And maybe that’s why Charlie thinks Mina is too good for his younger brother Josh, who has a history of being an ill-tempered screw-up.

It seems that Josh is still a bit of a rebel who likes to break rules. When Charlie and Michelle go to pick up Mina and Josh for their road trip, they see that Josh has brought his French bulldog Reggie along for the trip, even though Josh knows that the house’s rental policy clearly states that pets aren’t allowed in the house. Charlie (who’s doing the driving, of course) immediately objects to the dog going on the trip.

However, Josh insists that the dog go with them, and he says that they can hide the dog until after the person handing them the house keys will leave. Because Charlie doesn’t want to waste time arguing about it, he lets Josh have his way, and the dog goes with them on the trip.

During the drive to the rental house, Mina comments that her application to rent the house was rejected, even though she has practically the same qualifications as Charlie, whose application was accepted immediately. She thinks that her Middle Eastern name had something to do with the rejection, but Charlie dismisses the idea.

“The Rental” has some obvious messages about racism, sexism and “white privilege” by showing viewers how Mina and Charlie have very two different perspectives on how they navigate through life, based on how people treat them. Mina is very aware that being a woman of Middle Eastern descent means that bigots will exclude her from opportunities and make negative assumptions about her, while Charlie is more likely to be given opportunities and a positive benefit of the doubt because he’s a white man.

The movie makes it clear that Charlie is someone who doesn’t like to acknowledge that “white privilege” exists, because that would mean admitting that he has an unfair advantage over people of color in many situations where he benefits from people who believe in white supremacy. Someone like Charlie gets uncomfortable thinking that opportunities and accomplishments might have come his way a lot easier than for people of color who are equally or more qualified than he is.

Therefore, when Mina brings up the likelihood that she was discriminated against, Charlie doesn’t really want to hear it. Mina tells everyone in the car that she was rejected for other rental applications too, whereas Charlie was not rejected. Charlie says to Mina that there were probably other reasons why she was rejected.

Mina’s suspicions about the discrimination grow even more when the two couples arrive at the house and meet the caretaker who will hand them the house keys. The caretaker’s name is Taylor (played by Toby Huss), a scruffy, middle-aged guy who mentions that his brother is the house owner who never lives there, but Taylor is the one who looks after the house and oversees the rentals.

When Charlie introduces everyone to Taylor and mentions that Mina is his business partner and is Josh’s girlfriend, the caretaker rudely comments to Mina, “How’d you get mixed up in this family?” When Mina asks Taylor what he means by that, he denies that he meant anything by it.

Mina is bothered by the subtle racism that she seems to have gotten from Taylor, so she tells Josh in a private conversation outside that she doesn’t feel comfortable giving their money to a racist. Josh convinces her that they might as well stay to enjoy their vacation as much as possible, since the rental was paid for already and they already made a long road trip to get there.

Later, Mina confronts Taylor in front of everyone, by asking him why her application was rejected and Charlie’s application was immediately accepted. Taylor looks uncomfortable and says he doesn’t remember her application. Mina then reminds Taylor of her full name, while he looks increasingly uncomfortable. Charlie is starting to look embarrassed, and he tries to diffuse the tension by indicating that he wants Mina to stop this line of questioning.

Mina then tells Taylor that she and Charlie have nearly identical qualifications, but the application from a white man (Charlie) was accepted, and her application was rejected. Taylor still won’t answer the question. Instead, he turns the conversation around and tells Mina that if she has a problem, she can cancel the rental.

Taylor’s deflection is shady and manipulative, because Taylor knows that the rental is in Charlie’s name, and it’s pretty obvious that Charlie doesn’t want to cancel the rental agreement or cause any arguments with Taylor. Mina also knows that the other people in the group don’t want to cancel the rental agreement, so she has no choice but to let the matter go.

This heated conversation between Mina and Taylor is meant to exemplify how people who try to confront issues of discrimination are often “shut down” and labeled as “difficult” by people trying to divert attention away from the real issues. Meanwhile, people who aren’t directly affected by discrimination, but know about it, often won’t speak up and will act like they want the issue to just go away—as exemplified by how Charlie, Josh and Michelle do nothing to come to Mina’s defense.

Before he leaves the two couples to have the house to themselves, Taylor shows that he’s not only a racist but he’s also a creep when he mentions that there’s a telescope they can use in the house, in case anyone wants to be a Peeping Tom. Taylor says it in a joking manner, but his tone of voice indicates that he’s only half-joking.

After getting settled in, the two couples go for an evening walk on the beach. When they come back to the house that night, they see that someone (presumably Taylor) set up the telescope in the living room while the two couples were away.

Mina immediately expresses discomfort that Taylor can come and goes as he pleases while they’re staying at the house. But the other people in the group act as if she’s being a little too paranoid and “difficult,” so Mina is made to feel once again that she’s in the minority.

“The Rental” is written in such a way that the entire movie can be viewed as a social commentary about peer pressure and how failing to speak up and report problems—for the sake of pretending that everything is okay and going along with a group mentality—can ultimately be dangerous to someone’s well-being. There’s also social commentary about power dynamics and rivalries between men, women and siblings and why people keep certain secrets.

In one scene, Michelle and Josh are having a private conversation while they’re hiking in the woods. It’s revealed in this conversation that Michelle is a lot more insecure about Charlie and Mina’s relationship than she would like to publicly admit. Charlie clearly admires Mina’s intellect and ambition, but Michelle doesn’t have those same qualities, so Michelle feels that Mina is giving Charlie a type of emotional fulfilment that Michelle, as his wife, can’t give.

It’s never stated in the movie if Michelle works outside of her home or not, but it is made clear that she has nothing to do with Charlie’s start-up business and doesn’t help him make any decisions about the company. Michelle’s insecurities are fueled when Josh divulges some information about two of Charlie’s former girlfriends whom Charlie dated before Charlie met Michelle.

The movie also has a not-so-subtle message about invasion of privacy and the type of trust that people willingly hand over to strangers in a house-rental situation that was arranged online. The trust issues go both ways for the renters and the house owners. And when these transactions are done online, where people can write relatively anonymous reviews about their rental experience, there might be a false sense of security that things will be completely safe.

Not long after getting settled in at the rental house, Mina and Josh find a guest house, which has a locked door on a lower-deck level. The door has a key-code lock. What’s behind the door? It’s revealed in the movie whether or not what’s behind the door is relevant to the story.

Meanwhile, some Ecstasy-fueled partying in the house and some hidden surveillance result in a chain of events that bring on the horror. It’s enough to say that the couples in the house are being stalked and spied on, and there is some bloody mayhem that ensues.

“The Rental,” which has a lot of scenes that take place at night, certainly brings the right atmosphere to the movie, as things get more sinister as the story unfolds. The abundance of fog can be explained by the fact that this story takes place mostly in a cliffside house near a treacherous ocean. And the film’s musical score by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans is a definite asset in the movie’s most effective thrilling scenes.

However, a lot of horror fans might not like that it takes so long (about two-thirds of the movie) for “The Rental” to get to any suspenseful action. Most of the film is really a character study of the increasingly tense relationships between Charlie, Michelle, Mina and Josh. Because the dialogue is realistic, the actors are well-cast, and the acting is better than what’s in an average horror movie, it’s worth the wait to get to the scenes in the movie where the characters are in real danger.

“The Rental” director Franco shows promising talent for telling a good story, but in the end, not much of it is very original. In fact, the least original part of “The Rental” is the murder spree, which has been seen and done in many other horror movies. Although “The Rental’s” characters are engaging and believable (Vand and Brie give the best performances), the action scenes are very formulaic.

People who expect a slasher flick to have the first killing happen within the first 15 minutes of the movie will probably be bored or disappointed by “The Rental.” Anyone who sees this movie has to be willing to sit through a lot of realistic relationship drama before getting to the over-the-top and predictable horror violence.

IFC Films released “The Rental” in select U.S. cinemas, digital and VOD on July 24, 2020.