Alison Brie – Chris Barsanti

In The Rental, the debut movie from Dave Franco (James Franco’s far less prolific brother), four hipsters, including a particularly oily Dan Stevens (a long way from Downton Abbey) head up to a secluded cabin for a vacation that turns, well, dicey.

The Rental is available for streaming and can be seen at some drive-ins starting this Friday. Check it out.

My review is at PopMatters:

In many horror movies, once the malevolence of the setting has been made clear, there remains a significant amount of celluloid left to run as the characters fight for survival. That is not the case in The Rental, which feels at first more like a gloomily-lit smaller-scale version of [co-writer Joe Swanberg’s] Drinking Buddies, a far gentler comedic take on two couples who lose sight of boundaries during a weekend at the shore. Not so here, where the foursome just starts to realize the threat of their surroundings when the trap starts to swing shut…

Here’s the trailer:

Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis try to resist each other's charms in 'Sleeping with Other People' (IFC Films) — Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis try to resist each other’s charms in ‘Sleeping with Other People’ (IFC Films)

Although Trainwreck garnered all the headlines for this year’s explicit woman-oriented edgy romantic comedy, Leslye Headland’s Sleeping with Other People fulfills a lot of the promise that that Amy Schumer/Judd Apatow collaboration couldn’t quite deliver on.

Sleeping with Other People is playing now. My review is at PopMatters:

A deconstructive sweet-and-sourball of a romantic comedy, Sleeping With Other People seems made for the therapeutically inclined. To that end, it doesn’t quite deliver the story we might expect from its initial meet-cute. Lainey (Alison Brie) and Jake (Jason Sudeikis) do make their way to a big dance number and some climactic soul-baring, but Leslye Headland’s movie doesn’t balance out emotional payoffs for everybody. Both partners learn lessons, but neither quite gets what they want…

Here’s the trailer:

Chris Barsanti

Tag: Alison Brie

Screening Room: ‘The Rental’

Screening Room: ‘Sleeping with Other People’