You might not feel at home with this picture either, but it's another unconventional film from Netflix that will appeal to a certain segment of the viewing audience. I get a kick out of their viewer warnings prior to each film; for this one they have language, violence and smoking. The 'smoking' part kills me every time I see it on one of their offerings, like that can be equated to masochism, flagrant use of the 'F' word, and buckets of gore that are often a staple of their pictures. Just saying.
Anyway, a rather timid nursing home assistant (Melanie Lynskey) who's home has been burglarized, teams up with an awkward neighbor (Elijah Wood) after the local police aren't very helpful in tracking down the miscreants. Wood plays his character like the kind of guy who would like to fit in but knows he never will, at least in somewhat normal company. You get a sense of his own personal moral code when he distances himself from Ruthie's (Lynskey) theft of a bamboo lawn tiger. He's also clumsily handy with his nunchakus, almost to the point of hurting himself. I sure wouldn't get in his way, especially when he throws those shurikens. They could hurt.
Where I thought the story went a little off the rails was when the old guy Marshall (David Yow) tore after Ruthie in the swamp, and she had that brief encounter with the snake. For that snake to make it back for a second go round with the old dude seemed like a stretch, but what the heck. It made for a creative removal of that guy from the picture. Earlier, in a scene reminiscent from the "Ozark" series, Marshall's son Chris (Devon Graye), who started all the trouble to begin with by invading Ruthie's house, failed to look both ways before crossing and got hammered for his trouble. Man, did he look creepy.
Should you make it to the end of the story, I'm curious as to how Tony (Wood) made his way to the backyard barbecue after getting stabbed in the gut multiple times by Dez (Jane Levy), the third member of the bad guy trio with Marshall and Chris. Was that a dream sequence or what? It looked like it could have been. It all plays to the movie's theme song that corresponds to the title of this flick, and has a much more upbeat feel to it than anything that happened in the story.
Anyway, a rather timid nursing home assistant (Melanie Lynskey) who's home has been burglarized, teams up with an awkward neighbor (Elijah Wood) after the local police aren't very helpful in tracking down the miscreants. Wood plays his character like the kind of guy who would like to fit in but knows he never will, at least in somewhat normal company. You get a sense of his own personal moral code when he distances himself from Ruthie's (Lynskey) theft of a bamboo lawn tiger. He's also clumsily handy with his nunchakus, almost to the point of hurting himself. I sure wouldn't get in his way, especially when he throws those shurikens. They could hurt.
Where I thought the story went a little off the rails was when the old guy Marshall (David Yow) tore after Ruthie in the swamp, and she had that brief encounter with the snake. For that snake to make it back for a second go round with the old dude seemed like a stretch, but what the heck. It made for a creative removal of that guy from the picture. Earlier, in a scene reminiscent from the "Ozark" series, Marshall's son Chris (Devon Graye), who started all the trouble to begin with by invading Ruthie's house, failed to look both ways before crossing and got hammered for his trouble. Man, did he look creepy.
Should you make it to the end of the story, I'm curious as to how Tony (Wood) made his way to the backyard barbecue after getting stabbed in the gut multiple times by Dez (Jane Levy), the third member of the bad guy trio with Marshall and Chris. Was that a dream sequence or what? It looked like it could have been. It all plays to the movie's theme song that corresponds to the title of this flick, and has a much more upbeat feel to it than anything that happened in the story.