The
Petersons should have remembered what Ben Franklin said about fish and
houseguests. Initially, the mysterious “David” is so handy to have around the
house, he earns more than three days. Unfortunately, the suspicions of their
twenty year old daughter will be fully justified in Adam Wingard’s The Guest (trailer here), which opens this
Wednesday in New York.
When
Caleb Peterson was killed in Iraq, it devastated his family, particularly his
mother Laura. However, meeting “David,” Caleb’s freshly discharged friend and fellow
squad member, offers her some consolation. Despite his humble origins, David is
so faultlessly polite and gracious, she immediately invites the former soldier
to be their guest, for as long as takes to back on his feet. Her husband
Spencer is rather put out by her impulsiveness, until he spends some quality
drinking time with David. Soon only their daughter Anna remains uncomfortable
with the arrangement.
Within
the context of the film, it is easy to understand why the Petersons so readily
embrace their guest, at the expense of common sense. After all, he seems to
bring good luck. In reality, David starts clandestinely “lending a hand” to the
Peterson family, doing the sort of things they always secretly wished would
happen, but would never admit. Sometimes Wingard and his screen-writer
collaborator Simon Barrett maintain some ambiguity, as to just what David did
or did not do, but there is no question about his proactive approach to the
high school bullies tormenting the youngest Peterson sibling. Even Anna warms
to David, but plot contrivances will interrupt their mounting sexual tension.
The
first half of The Guest is absolutely
terrific, inviting viewers to vicariously enjoy David’s freelance
friend-of-the-family activism. Let’s face it, there are times everyone wished
they had a secret benefactor who could make troublesome people disappear, but
without any knowledge or culpability troubling our consciences.
Frustratingly,
much of what works in the first half is largely lost in the second. Instead of
a Nietzschean super-man, we learn David is a veritable super-soldier, thanks to
a clichéd top secret government program, following in the tradition of the Universal Soldier franchise and scores
of similar b-movies. What was once a very sly thriller becomes a formulaic
exercise in comeuppance for a Blackwater-like military contractor in a tiresome
by-the-numbers endgame.
That
is a real shame, because it squanders the intriguing performances and cleverly
executed action scenes from the early acts. Formerly of Downton Abbey, Dan Stevens could not get any further from Cousin
Matthew than the mysterious David, but he pulls it off (clearly after putting
in his time at the gym). He commands the screen with his sociopathic charm. Frankly,
his supposedly Kentucky accent often sounds weird, like he is speaking through
a Vocoder, but it kind of works nonetheless. As Anna, Maika Monroe generates
plenty of heat with Stevens, while maintaining a sense of propriety and
intelligence.
