September 6, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Nadia Latif
Culture Representation: Taking place in 1994, in Sag Harbor, New York, the dramatic film “The Man in My Basement” (based on the 2004 novel of the same name) features a predominantly African American cast of characters (with some white people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: An unemployed man, who is close to losing his house because of his unpaid debts, accepts an offer from a mysterious stranger, who wants pay the man at least $65,000 to secretly let him live in the house’s basement.
Culture Audience: “The Man in My Basement” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the book on which the movie is based, and psychological thrillers that have vague endings that many people would consider unsatisfying.
Just like the mysterious renter Anniston Bennet, this misguided psychological mystery comes undone in a self-imposed prison of half-baked ideas, rules that are broken, and a muddled identity. The talented cast can’t save this mess. “The Man in My Basement” is the type of movie that starts out intriguing, but it squanders the potential to be a good movie with too many rushed, sloppy and nonsensical scenes in the last third of the movie.
Directed by Nadia Latif and co-written by Latif and Walter Mosley, “The Man in My Basement” is based on Mosley’s 2004 novel of the same name. The movie takes place in 1994, in the village of Sag Harbor, New York. (The movie was actually filmed in Sag Harbor and in the United Kingdom’s Wales.) “The Man in My Basement” (which is Latif’s feature-film directorial debut) had its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.
“The Man in My Basement” begins by showing a poker game taking place in the house owned by Charles Blakey (played by Corey Hawkins), who lives alone in the middle-class house that he inherited from his mother Valerie, who died in 1985. Charles’ father died when he was a child. Charles and his mother were each born in this house. Charles used to live with his elderly uncle Brent Blakey (played by Brian Bovell, seen in flashbacks), but Brent died in 1991.
Charles, who has no siblings, is a never-married bachelor in his 30s. He lives in a neighborhood called Sag Harbor Hills, a historically African American community. The house that he owns has been in his family for eight generations. Charles mentions later on in the movie that he’s the last person in his immediate family who has the last name Blakey.
Charles is playing poker with his best friend Ricky Winkler (played by Jonathan Ajayi) and their friend Clarence Mayhew (played by Gershwyn Eustache Jnr.) in a game that quickly becomes hostile and turns into a physical fight. The three men are discussing Charles’ dire financial predicament: Charles has been unemployed for months, he’s fallen behind on his mortgage payments, and the house is very close to getting foreclosed on by Sag Harbor Bank.
Because the house has been owned by Charles’ family for generations, it can be presumed that at some point in the past, Charles took out a mortgage on this house and has been unable to pay that mortgage. The conversation about Charles’ financial predicament is making Charles uncomfortable, so he annoys Clarence by calling Clarence the nickname Clara. It’s a nickname that Clarence dislikes. Clarence warns Charles not to call him Clara again. But, of course, Charles does call him Clara again.
Clarence throws a beer bottle at Charles. The bottle narrowly misses Charles, who lunges at Clarence. Clarence calls Charles “lazy, ungrateful” and the derogatory “n” word name. The tussle turns into a brawl that goes outside. Ricky breaks up the fight and does his best to keep the peace. A still-infuriated Clarence leaves in a huff after telling Charles, “I hope they take your goddamn house.”
The next morning, Charles gets a visit from a mysterious stranger who knocks on Charles’ door. The stranger introduces himself as Anniston Bennet (played by Willem Dafoe), who says that he’s from Greenwich, Connecticut. Anniston confirms that Charles is the owner of the house and makes an unusual request: Anniston asks to rent Charles’ basement for “a couple of months,” or 65 days to be exact.
Charles replies, “This house ain’t for sale or rent … I live alone, and I like it like that.” Anniston is polite and takes this rejection in stride. Anniston leaves his business card with Charles and tells Charles to contact him in case Charles changes his mind. The business card shows that Anniston works for a company called Tannenbaum & Ross Investment Group.
Much of the first third of the movie is about Charles becoming increasingly desperate for money. Ricky, who is a construction worker, tells Charles about a construction company that is hiring extra workers. Ricky and Charles go to the construction site, but the hiring manager Wilson Ryder (played by Mark Arnold) chooses Ricky and other men and immediately rejects Charles, who has no other job prospects.
It’s not revealed until later in the movie that Charles has been unemployed for months because he was involved in a theft scandal at Sag Harbor Bank, where he used to be an employee. (The details of the scandal, such as if Charles is guilty or not, are revealed in the movie.) Sag Harbor Bank’s highest-ranking manager John Paterson (played by Bret Jones) was Charles’ boss and is also the person who’s the chief administrator for Charles’ mortgage. Charles strongly suspects that John has been saying bad things about Charles to potential employers. Charles privately blames John for Charles’ inability to find a job.
Charles’ cousin Lainie (played by Kayla Meikle) works as a mid-level manager at the bank. She is unsympathetic about Charles’ plight and refuses to help him. She suggests that Charles should take an offer that the bank received from a unidentified buyer who wants to purchase the house, but Charles refuses to consider selling the house. Charles calls his aunt Peaches (played by Shellia Kennedy) to ask her for a $2,500 loan. She says no and expresses irritation with Charles because she hadn’t heard from him in months, and now that he’s contacted her, all he seems to want from her is money.
Things get so bad for Charles, he’s counting loose change to see if he has enough money to pay for gas for his car’s nearly empty gas tank. With his options running out, Charles calls the phone number on Anniston’s business card. Charles gets voice mail and leaves a message to say that he’s possibly interested in renting out the basement to Anniston, but Anniston has to give more information first about how much he’s willing to pay.
In the meantime, Ricky suggests that Charles should look around Charles’ house for any valuable items that could be sold. Ricky recommends that Charles set up a meeting with an antiques dealer named Narciss Gully (played by Anna Diop), whom Ricky knows. Narciss can come to Charles’ house and do an appraisal of any items he wants to sell.
Ricky privately makes a verbal agreement in advance with Charles to get a 10% commission on any items sold by Narciss, whose specialty is in African and African American artifacts. Charles somewhat reluctantly agrees to this deal. When Charles and bachelorette Narciss meet, Charles feels an immediate attraction to her, but he plays it cool. Narciss seems to be attracted to him too, but their first meeting is strictly platonic.
Narciss finds three African masks in the house and tells Charles that the masks could be worth $40,000 to $100,000. Charles’ elation turns into disappointment when Narciss tells him that it would take up to three months to get a response from any antiques dealers willing to buy any of the masks and up to nine months for any museums to respond. Charles can’t wait that long because he’s supposed to pay his defaulted loan in less than a week.
It’s around this time that Anniston returns Charles’ phone call and tells him what he will pay to rent Charles’ basement. Anniston offers a payment of $1,000 a day, for a total of $65,000 in cash. The first $10,000 would be paid as a deposit. Anniston then would pay $20,000 on the move-in day. The remaining $35,000 would be paid at the end of the 65 days.
The only requirement that Anniston has is that Charles can’t tell anyone about this basement rental deal, and no one can know that Anniston is living at the house. Charles takes the offer. Anniston has a matter-of-fact tone in how he speaks, and he’s very persuasive. However, there’s still something obviously suspicious about him because of his weird demands.
On the day that Anniston moves in, and as workers put his belongings in the basement, Anniston tells Charles that he’s renting the basement so Anniston can “disappear” for a while. Anniston is adamant in saying that he doesn’t want any visitors and doesn’t want anyone to know that he’s there. Charles asks him if Anniston is mixed up in anything illegal and wants to know exactly what Anniston does for a living.
Anniston replies that he’s in the “reclamations” business. Anniston further explains that he finds properties that have hidden wealth. “I locate the wealth. And I acquire the property that contains it. Then, I receive a stipend based on the value of my reclamation. Nowadays, it’s called globalization, outsourcing, the cost of doing business.”
If Charles is feeling any doubts about this deal, he pushes these doubts aside. At this point, all he cares about is making the payment on his defaulted loan so he can keep his house. When Charles goes to Sag Harbor Bank, he curses out bank manager John before smugly giving John a wad of cash to cover the debt that was due to be paid in a few days.
Charles is in for a shock when he goes home and finds a zoo-sized cage in the basement. Anniston has locked himself inside the cage, which has a chair, table and a few books. Anniston says he wants to stay in the cage for the entire 65 days. Charles will have to provide the food, liquids and waste management for Anniston, who says he plans to spend most of his time reading in the cage. The basement has a water hose that’s close enough to the cage, so Anniston can use the hose to clean himself.
Charles hates this idea of having to take care of Anniston while Anniston locks himself in cage. Charles says he wants to back out of their deal. However, Anniston convinces Charles to do a two-week trial for their deal. After the two weeks, if Charles wants to end the deal, then he can keep the money that Anniston already paid. But if Charles wants to complete the original deal of letting Anniston stay there for 65 continuous days, then Charles will be paid an increased total of $130,000.
“The Man in My Basement” takes quite a long time (nearly half of the movie) before it gets to this crucial point. The movie tries to inject some horror elements that are clumsily handled and ultimately don’t do much for the story. For example, Charles has hallucinations and nightmares, many of which are dead-end jump scares. There’s also a mysterious German Shepherd that keeps showing up in places where Charles goes. Don’t expect any answers about the significance of this dog.
“The Man in My Basement” also has a mishandled and ultimately useless “love triangle” subplot about Ricky, Charles and Ricky’s girlfriend Bethany (played by Tamara Lawrance), whom Charles has known since they were teenagers. Apparently, Bethany has had a longtime crush on Charles. However, they never dated each other because he ignored her attempts to start a romance with him.
Bethany is still very attracted to Charles and would probably dump Ricky if she thought she had a chance of being in a relationship with Charles because she still flirts with Charles when they’re alone together. It’s hinted that Charles could also have some feelings of attraction for Bethany because he masturbates when he hears Bethany and Ricky having sex upstairs in Charles’ house while Charles is downstairs on the living room couch. Ricky thinks Bethany could be the woman he permanently settles down with, and he tells Charles that Ricky will probably take his relationship with Bethany to the next level.
“The Man in My Basement” has some unexplained lapses in logic. The movie makes a point of showing that Charles has a nosy neighbor named Irene Littleneck (played by Pamela Nomvete), who is the caregiver for an adult relative named Chastity, who lives in the same house as Irene. Irene lives close enough to Charles where she (and anyone else close by) can see the comings and goings of anyone who goes inside Charles’ house through the front door.
On the day that Anniston moved in, he and Charles had a conversation in the front of Charles’ house that could easily be seen by anyone close enough to see them together—including the workers hired to move Anniston’s belongings into the basement. Anniston’s biggest requirement for this basement rental deal is that he doesn’t want anyone except Charles to know he’s at the house, but Anniston has a less-than-smart way of keeping it a “secret.” Later in the movie, Anniston does other things (which won’t be revealed in this review) that will frustrate or annoy viewers because these things contradict some of the strict “rules” that Anniston has for this bizarre arrangement that he has with Charles.
Although “The Man in My Basement” has compelling performances from Hawkins and Dafoe, the movie spirals into “fever dream” nonsense and never recovers. “The Man in My Basement” is a cluttered mix of ideas and themes, such as childhood trauma, manifestations of a guilty conscience, race relations, African American heritage, and generational wealth. These ideas and themes become a lot like the items stored in Charles’ basement: They’re haphazardly arranged, and the people responsible for sorting things out just don’t really know what to do with everything.
Hulu will release “The Man in My Basement” in select U.S. cinemas on September 12, 2025. The movie will premiere on Hulu and Disney+ on September 25, 2025.
