An Overlooked Alison Brie Movie Is Suddenly A Hit On Netflix
An Alison Brie movie that you might have missed the first time around is finding a second life over on Netflix, climbing into the top-10
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Alison Brie has forged a successful career over the last decade-plus on both the small and big screen, having major roles in big series as well as putting together a run of smaller, but critically acclaimed films as well. Though she’s definitely known more for what she’s done on the television side of things, there are some movies out there that have garnered some welcome attention. One of those is currently #6 on Netflix in the United States and only climbing. You can now check out The Rental which you might have missed the first time around.
The Rental follows the time-honored movie tradition of reminding viewers that procuring a remote cabin in the woods for a little weekend getaway is almost always a terrible idea. No sooner have you checked in than the entire group is stalked by a psycho killer out to get you for unknown reasons. It’s just what happens every single time. In this one, Alison Brie and a group of three other friends, two couples, rent a pretty swanky place on a cliffside with a creepy caretaker and begin to party as young folks are wont to do. Check out Alison Brie in the trailer for The Rental.
Of course, things take a creepy turn pretty quickly when Alison Brie finds out that in addition to the hot tub, high-end appliances, and scenic view, the house has also come equipped with spy cameras that are recording the group’s every move. This sets in motion a series of events that have the group eventually fleeing for their lives, no longer having an escapist weekend, and definitely planning to give this particular AirBNB rental a scathing review, if they make it out alive at alive.
The Rental is an insular movie, meaning we don’t have much in the way of the cast. The flick just takes during the ill-fated weekend with basically only the primary cast featured. In addition to Alison Brie, there’s also Dan Stevens (Legion, Beauty and the Beast) who is Brie’s character’s husband. The other couple of Shelia Vand (Argo) and Jeremy Allen White (Shameless) rounds out the foursome headed to the cabin. Also on board is Toby Huss who plays the creepy guy looking over the house and getting everyone settled in.
The Rental was written and directed by James Franco who had his debut on the other side of the camera for this one. The casting of Alison Brie in a lead role makes sense along these lines considering that the two are married in real life. Though Franco doesn’t come on screen in The Rental, he and Brie have worked on other movies together including The Disaster Artist, The Little Hours, as well as voice roles in The Lego Movie. So there’s a relationship on screen for the two in addition to one off-screen.
For his debut directing the movie, James Franco mostly hit a critical winner with The Rental. Coming out during the pandemic in the summer of 2020, it didn’t have much of a theater run to speak of, but the Alison Brie starrer did grab positive reviews from critics. It’s sitting at 74% on Rotten Tomatoes and 62 on Metacritic. By and large, reviewers thought that the movie delivered along a couple of different lines which separated it from just the standard murder cabin theme we’ve seen before.
The relationship issues among the main cast of couples played well with the lingering and hiding threat of the serial killer in the woods. The cast was particularly praised for bringing some new dimensions to this style of movie. It’s easy to see why Alison Brie and The Rental are finding a second life on Netflix these days.
Of course, this isn’t the first major success Alsion Brie has found on Netflix. She was the star of the series GLOW which debuted on the streamer. In it, Brie plays Ruth “Zoya the Destroya” Wilder with a story that takes us back to the 1980s in a retrospective look at the all-female wrestling organization of the same name. The three seasons of the series were a critical darling for the streamer with Emmy nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series among many others.
Next up for Alison Brie will be the Apple TV+ series Roar from the creators of GLOW. It will work anthology style with a number of different female-centric stories.
