In an average Florida city on an average humid day, Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield) and his family are thrown out of their home. It’s been repossessed by predatory estate agent Rick Carver (Michael Shannon), who turns these upended lots for a profit. Out of wretched necessity, Nash starts working for Carver, and through his experiences we see the city’s decimation, its residents cornered between cut-rate home loans and the inevitable foreclosures that follow.
Don’t dip your leg in the water, Carver warns. The alligators will have you. There’s no lifeboat for anyone, and the reptiles smell blood.
Shannon (Take Shelter, The Iceman) possesses the unnerving qualities of the perpetual villain, his Carver yet another exceptional performance in a string of many. Garfield finally delivers on the promise offered in Never Let Me Go. He exudes ease and naturalness, entirely believable as a working-class type, his body held in a constant shrug as if carrying the weight of his debt not just emotionally but also physically.
Iranian-American director Ramin Bahrani claims no agenda, but the film’s critiques are well-defined and deliberate. We return time and again to the same foreclosed families, the camera resting on their reactions, which range from outrage to bewildered non-acceptance. Children are often turfed out with their parents. Most heart-breaking is an evicted pensioner with no one to turn to. Victims become recognisable beside the main cast.
Further, Bahrani is clever enough to note both the incredible excess of the pre-2008 days and the American psyche transformed. Money used to be revered; now its worst forms are worshipped without consequence. Carver’s climactic monologue reworks the closing mantra of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address into a paean for elitism, a country embracing greed not liberty as its founding promise: “Of the winners, by the winners, for the winners.”
Unlike other films depicting the crash and its effects, 99 Homes is pertinent today: Florida’s county courts have backlogs of foreclosure cases and mortgages require as little as 3% down. There will be hundreds of Rick Carvers out there, and thousands of residents like Dennis Nash waiting for the sheriff’s door-knock.
Stars: 5/5
Words by: James Robins
