Title: Room For Rent
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Director: Matthew Atkinson
Starring: Brett Gelman, Mark Little, Mark McKinney
Runtime: 1 hr 29 mins

What It Is: Mitch Baldwin (Little) wins the lottery at only 18 years old. This sets off his life of mismanaging his money until he runs out around age 32. Now with his dad Warren (McKinney) forced into early retirement they may have to sell the house. To counteract that as a possible necessity Mitch purposes that they rent out the spare room that was currently housing all of his failed investments. When Carl (Gelman) moves into the said room no one is sure what his intentions are or even what he does for a living. One thing is for sure he seems to have it out for Mitch.

What We Think: Gelman is especially good here. He’s equal parts charming and creepy. Unlike his character in last years lemon ironically titled Lemon. There’s at least a microcosm of charm here which there wasn’t in that. Overall the narrative and storytelling by Atkinson feel wholly indie if you know what I mean. Some of the humor misses but what does land is pretty good. Most of the bad jokes just come off as stale.

Our Grade: C+, It’s a hard film to find given its independent status. Its concept is sort of a recycled one. Similar in a way to things like Single White Female, minus the female of course. It’s a slight recommendation from me. It certainly has some laughs and maybe just maybe you’ll find this funnier then I did. Brett Gelman needs more work the guy is really good. Maybe get him some better scripts to work with, or even let him start doing some stuff he wants to do. Nonetheless, check it out if you DO find it.