Michael Shannon has been in a lot of films I’ve seen recently with 99 Homes being the most recent and it has been on my radar pretty much since I saw The Big Short earlier in the year. Both films tackle the housing market crash in 2008, but 99 Homes definitely takes it in a much more serious tone. It’s a really well performed film deserving of the Not Quite Golden, Ponyboy rating.
What’s 99 Homes about?
Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield) is struggling to find work and his family home is in the process of being foreclosed. Fortune takes an odd twist and he ends up working for Rick Carver (Michael Shannon), the real estate broker who is the source of his frustration.
Andrew Garfield does a great job as Dennis Nash with Laura Dern as his mother, Lynn Nash, and Noah Lomax as his son, Connor. Garfield and Dern get to really showcase emotion at the beginning of the film when they are being evicted from their home. The scene is extremely frustrating to sit through and Michael Shannon’s role as the antagonist of the scene is fantastic. It’s painful to watch and yet Shannon’s character makes valid points making his despicable character all the more upsetting. Garfield is able to display lots of emotion in the film and I was really able to feel what the character was going through.
Ramin Bahrani is writer and director, along with Amir Naderi and Bahareh Azimi listed as co-writers, does a great job of building this emotional story. Set in Orlando, Fl in roughly 2010 the film offers both the technical side of the housing crisis as well as really capturing the emotional side. There is a rapid series of characters who are victims of foreclosure and each one’s reaction is impactful to the feel of the film. The tone is depressing and the film ended with me in a depressed slump on my couch. It’s definitely hard to watch because some of the people being evicted aren’t always victims. Nevertheless, the emotional reactions the Bahrani is able to create really makes this story impactful.
This is a film that has historical significance without the label of a true story. The events discussed are amalgamations of many true stories and really show a time when the economy was really hurting and a lot of people paid the price of that pain. It’s a well made film with solid production values and a sad story that people should know about.
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