NNarrative CompetitionDirector: Ramin Bahrani
USA | English
2014 | 112min.
Subtitles: Arabic
Format: DCP
Theme: A
15+99 Homes is a searing, impeccably acted indictment of capitalism, especially as it functions in present-day American real estate. The film focuses on Florida construction worker Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield), who has fallen irretrievably behind on his mortgage payments due to lack of work. Desperate to keep the home he shares with his mother and son, his last-ditch attempt with the court system fails, and the family is tossed out by a fast-talking bank representative named Rick Carver (Michael Shannon) and a cadre of cops and hirelings. In a surprising turn of events, Nash soon finds himself accepting a job as one of Carver’s flunkies and thus enters a morass of moral ambiguity. Bahrani, whose films consistently focus on the plight of the have-nots, here creates a timely and gripping modern reimagining of the Faustian bargain, demonstrating the lengths someone will go to in order to become a “have.' As Carver’s influence increases, the morally upstanding Nash succumbs to the lure of dollar signs at the cost of his soul. Shannon is unforgettable as the slick, satanic Carver (“America doesn’t bail out losers,' he tells Dennis) while Garfield does the most complex work of his career as Nash, a simple man in terrible danger of losing everything he claims to be fighting for. —Rod Armstrong