Unreserved Windfall Movie Recommendation. Look. I’m not going to be neutral on this particular movie recommendation. Why? Well, because I just adore closed box films. What’s a closed box film you ask? So glad you did – Hollywood tends to use the term single-location shoot, or contained… but I prefer closed box. And I prefer closed box films so much, that I have even accrued a really long list of them that I recommend unreservedly as well that you can scroll through right here.
But what is Windfall about? Take a multi-billionaire CEO, a new wife, and someone intent on petty larceny all gone wrong? That’s what it’s about. Think I nailed it. Hollywood? Need an elevator pitch writer? I’m your guy. Pause for a moment though… this isn’t a film noire thriller. This is more of a pensive discussion of class. So, if you were hoping for more of a closed box Squid Games thriller with craziness and blood? That’s not what this is. Windfall is more like Beatriz at Dinner than Exam. Don’t get me wrong… Exam is magical as a closed box movie, but this isn’t that. Windfall is more about the state of the union of massive, unimaginable wealth, and what that generally might mean to the world at large.
Alright – this walkthrough and discussion of the movie is going to be spoiler filled – please be sure to watch the film before partaking of the goodness that is this write-up. Fair enough? Thanks.
Windfall Movie Walkthrough
This is an old fashioned movie. The movie poster hand drawn art is old fashioned. The screenplay is old fashioned. The soundtrack is really old fashioned. And I loved it.
There are four people in this closed box blender-fest. You have “Nobody” – played by Jason Segel. “CEO” played by Jesse Plemons. The CEO’s “Wife” played by Lily Collins. And you have the “Gardner” played by Omar Leyva. Alright? Now you know everyone in this film. And it starts with Nobody parading about CEO’s home like he owns the place. He’s drinking the orange juice in the fridge, trying out the oranges on the trees. He wanders this way and that, around the property. It eventually becomes clear he doesn’t own the place… though that takes a moment. But that becomes crystalline when he starts stealing jewelry, cash, watches, etc. But when the CEO and Wife arrive unexpectedly to the house, he is trapped.
I won’t go over, in detail, what happens next. If you literally considered the practicalities of robbing someone, and then being interrupted, you can imagine what happens next. Nobody gets a little more money from them from a hiding spot behind a bookshelf. He tells them he wants more. They encourage him to ask for even more money. It’s the weirdest robbery ever. Ultimately they come to the number $500,000. But getting a hold of that kind of cash is complicated, logistically. But because CEO has had affairs, and has had to pay women off, he has a pretty slick system in place. A Private Investigator, a dead drop, the whole thing. Which begs all sorts of questions. Then the waiting for the money begins, which, won’t arrive until tomorrow afternoon. Along the way, a gardener arrives, to work on the grounds… so the three of them are stuck inside, waiting for the gardener to leave. But he notices Nobody, and gets drawn into the chaos as well…
Let’s pause a moment and consider.
Who is Nobody? What do we know about him? Literally nothing. A common criminal? A random, down on his luck burglar? Or a malicious, evil, greedy human being? We don’t know. We do get the sense that he isn’t malicious, he hasn’t pointed his gun at them. He doesn’t seem intent on hurting anyone, just getting away.
Who is CEO? Welp, we know he is unimaginably rich. Multi-billionaire kind of rich. We also know that he is philanderer, a quick to the bribe sort of philanderer. A newly married philanderer. A super rich, super entitled individual that believes it’s because of his unbelievable prowess and stick-to-it’ve-ness that he has harnessed the world to his whims.
Who is Wife? She started her career as an assistant at a non-profit. She met CEO and they got married. After they were married, she took over CEO’s non-profit and philanthropic work.
Who is the Gardener? We come to learn that the gardener has been the caretaker for this home and its ground for quite a long time. He’s hoping to put a huge tree in the middle of the grounds work he’s done so that generations to come will be able to appreciate it.
Are you sensing what I’m sensing here? This isn’t a story about a robbery. It’s a story about life. A cross-section of humanity, jammed into a single home, telling a single story. It’s about the have-nots. The hopefuls. The on tops. And the angered. The question is… how does this little mythic fable about life end up?
The Ending of Windfall Movie Explained
With the gardener, the wife, and the CEO all tied up, and the wait for the $500,000 continuing… the Gardener panics, runs, and accidentally trips, headfirst into the glass of the door. And minutes later, the gardener has bled out, and died. So Nobody’s little petty larceny charge, now has jumped to manslaughter at the very least. Secondary murder if the prosecutor is worth her salt. This twists the formula of this experience in a totally new direction. Nobody is in so much trouble, he has to seriously consider murdering CEO and Wife.
Which brings us to the money… which is dropped off at the gate by the PI, and Wife is sent to grab it. And while she is standing there, with the money, she stares at her feet. Now, for the slower among us… not you… that other guy just over there —–> … this is what you might call in literature, a leitmotif. But in cinematography, it’s called a visual motif. Earlier, Wife told us a story about her standing, at the top of the aisle, heading into her wedding, and trying to decide if she should head down the aisle. She knew if she took a step towards this marriage, she knew where she would be in 40 years, but if she left, she might live a life of adventure and unknowns. That is what it means each time she stares at her feet. Got it?
So, she’s standing there, with the gate open, she could leave… she stares at her feet, but decides to turn around, and go back in. Here we are, Nobody has the money and our visit is at an end. And Wife tells Nobody – in a complete moment of vulnerability – that the tattoo on her foot, the one the CEO is having her remove? That the tattoo was of a rose, and that she loved it. Nobody’s response? “I don’t give a f@#$.” Which, clarifies exactly where Nobody and Wife stand. It clarifies what he thinks of Wife. And it’s then she decides what to do next. As Nobody is walking out the door, he needs to stop and tie his shoe (which was foreshadowed so, so, so many times throughout the movie.) and when he does, Wife cracks him in the skull with a statue thing. (It’s in the trailer, that was foreshadowed a billion times throughout the movie too.)
Wife kills Nobody. It blows CEO’s mind… it opens his eyes to who this woman was and what she was capable of. Which is sad, because it was too late. He doesn’t know it yet, but it’s too late. Wife then takes the gun (CEO’s gun I might add) and shoots him several times in the chest. She then systematically wipes her prints off the gun and places the gun in Nobody’s, now dead, hand. And then, standing at the door, she looks down at her feet again… and takes a step forward.
But What Does the Movie Windfall Mean?
Let me start over… no, there is too much, I’ll sum up. Windfall is a metaphorical story talking about class, status, and how these various people see each other. Now that we are at the end, let’s review each of these four characters once again, shall we?
Who is CEO? Welp, we know he is unimaginably rich CEO of a company that perfected an algorithm that “optimizes” companies. Which means, many people have been laid off by this company’s unthinking AI. CEO believes, unironically, that he was not handed anything, but rather, through his hard work and talent, he has fought through to where he is today.
Who is Nobody? The big question of the movie, the one that plagues CEO throughout the film, is simple – how did CEO hurt Nobody? (I mean other than calling him Nobody the entire movie long.) CEO is nigh on certain that his company laid Nobody off, and as a result, Nobody is here for revenge. We are aware that Nobody has studied CEO intimately, and that this home robbery was not a coincidence. Nobody silently hoped that CEO would be a nice guy so that all of this would make more sense. But the movie never tells us specifically who Nobody is.
Who is Wife? She is the pivot of this movie, we know that. We know that she has yielded to CEO’s insanities in the hopes of an unbelievably good life. A prenup. A tattoo removal. A blind eye to his dalliances.
Who is the Gardner? The Gardner is a wholesome character. He works hard for a living. And he has visions of leaving good legacies for generations to come. The Gardner is literally the only innocent person in this film… and the first to die, horribly, if accidentally.
Ever since I first wrote about Nuevo Orden, and the amazing Mexican movie that talked about a stratified uprisings and violent overthrowing of class disparities (a movie that has stuck with me vividly since then, I continue to go back to the idea of writing a book about a violent uprising against the ten wealthiest people on the planet), I have been thinking about this idea of the ultra-wealthy and the rest of us. How ultra-wealthy people live lives immune to legal disputes (or legal disputes that can actually touch them, aka settlements, NDA muzzles, etc.) or other day-to-day complexities. But that is what we are talking about here, CEO is wayyyyy ———–> over that way on the wealth scale, and then there is the rest of the people in this movie. To have enough money to just order people around? Personal assistants to make money appear. PI’s to do dead drops.
So, the movie is about the disparities across our society. About extreme wealth. And these individuals that amass ungodly sums of money, and who they become as a result of that freedom. But it’s also about the rest of us. The people that are forced to live in the same world as these people. Those of us that unfortunately are forced to rub shoulders with these people, and put up with their outsized perspectives of themselves, and their unrealistic views of the world. Nobody probably was laid off by CEO’s company, or was just fascinated by this man who is laying off people randomly around the world. He’s affected by hundreds, or even a few thousand dollars. And a half million will change his life forever. And while he seemed to care about Wife, he shows his true colors when he tells her he doesn’t give a f@#$ about her tattoo. Nobody was morbidly fascinated with CEO. Maybe he was hurt by CEO, and was hoping to hurt him in return. But we also see that Nobody is no different, really, than CEO. He’s selfish and myopic. When Gardener fatally cuts his throat accidentally, Nobody (the character, but also no one) doesn’t really help. He really does nothing as the poor man bleeds out. (Granted, there was really nothing he could have done.)
And Wife? She is the most dynamic of characters in this movie. She tells Nobody things that we know are true. CEO tells her to get close to Nobody, to do whatever was necessary to have him befriend her. CEO used her like chum. And Wife tells about her tattoo, her desire for independence, thinking that the CEO is asleep. We learn of her hopes for the unknowns of life, and the adventure. She tells us of all the little freedoms she’s had to give away since marrying CEO. She’s compromised. She is not herself anymore. And it is for that reason, that Wife kills Nobody, and then shoots CEO… leaving the third corpse there in the house.
At first I was thinking small… I thought that maybe she would take the half million and flee. But why would she be so constrained? By killing CEO, AND Nobody, she was able to tell of the horrific home robbery that occurred. Literally the entire story would be true, right up until the part where she says that Nobody shot the CEO out of revenge, and then she managed to kill him to save her own life. She then would have access to all of CEO’s money. Billions and billions of dollars. Homes. Cars. Whatever he has left her in the will. And the world would see her through the eyes of pity and sadness. She would break up during the funeral, tell of the happy get away he planned. Etc., etc.
Ultimately, Windfall, is all about Wife… and the “windfall” she has tripped into. It’s not about Nobody’s windfall. It’s about her decision to stop the concessions. Stop the daily dying of her self to this outsized ego. It’s about her deciding for herself that she needs to start making her own decisions again. But it’s more about our own decisions. To not allow others with influence and outsized gravitational pulls force us into being something that we are not.
Edited by: CY
