The Guest – Review

Parents Laura and Spencer (Kelley and Orser) are dealing with the tragic death of their military son, while trying to maintain the family together, as their other two children Anna and Luke (Monroe and Meyer) process grief in their own ways. Enter guest David (Stevens), one of the son’s squad members, who was a friend of the fallen soldier. As he was just discharged himself, he does not have a place to stay planned out, and the family takes him in, almost using his presence as a way to heal.

As to David’s motivations, that is for the viewer to discover. Just when you figure the story is settling into a certain type of sub-plot, it quickly subverts norms and shows you something else. The mix of mystery and action flows easily into satire or even tension, without losing a bit of steam.

The Guest is a solid thriller with some good mystery bits. Acting wise, everyone is solid at their parts, and Stevens and Monroe are given the most to do. They both show quite the range in this short flick, and it’s clear why they are constantly working in Hollywood.

The Guest mixes a legion of competing elements into its straight forward story. While nothing plot-wise is new to the industry, the presentation is sharp, witty and captivating. Overall, the film is quite self-aware, and it leads to an engrossing presentation full of surreal moments and funny bits mixed up in a storm of electronic soundtrack beats. There are jokes and there is violence, the latter of which needs to be considered for those that are blood-averse. That being said, it’s not extremely graphic, so if you can stomach a bit of tension and terror, take the plunge!

The very last line of the movie is perfect.

This is another one of those movies that is hard to compare to others, which is usually a good thing!