The Guest (2014)

[StevePulaski]

The Guest (2014)
Directed by: Adam Wingard

Dan Stevens in The Guest.

Rating: ★★★

Within barely two minutes of Adam Wingard's The Guest beginning, we have our premise. A young man named David Collins, who claims to be a former soldier stationed in Afghanistan, arrives at the doorstep of Spencer and Laura Peterson (Leland Orser and Sheila Kelley) claiming to be their late son Caleb's best friend. Caleb was killed overseas, and David shares stories of the two, who shared a platoon together. Within a few more minutes, Laura is eagerly offering and practically demanding David stay with them for a few days, seeing as he has nowhere to go. He soon helps their son Luke (Brendan Meyer) overcome problems with bullies at school, but becomes a bit too skeptical and involved in their oldest daughter Anna's (Maika Monroe) affairs. Soon enough, it would appear that David isn't who he says he is, but that's long after he's got his claws deep into this family.

David is played by Dan Stevens, a suave and attractive young actor who actually communicates a lot of what Wingard and screenwriter Simon Barrett are going for with The Guest. Appearance-wise, Stevens almost looks like a young Paul Walker, with his refined jaw and small amount of dirty-blonde hair that looks as if it's easy to ruffle up. In an acting sense, however, Stevens does a smooth job at conveying a lot of the details and character-subtleties of his particular character, working with minimal backstory and not a lot of ability to emote in an obvious sense. He's almost too perfect in his role.

The Guest is another successful chiller with Wingard's evident stamp of quality, largely due to the presence of two things: minor details regarding the relationships of characters to one another and the ongoing manner of doing a lot with a little. As far as the first thing is concerned, consider Luke's relationship to David as soon as he arrives. Everyone has a more discernible and identifiable reaction to him and his story, with Spencer and Laura's being complete-and-total belief and Anna's being skepticism ranging from mild to confirmed. Luke is a bit more passive and allows David to come into his life and help him with self-defense and confidence, and when Luke discovers the truth about David, he wants to defend him on the basis that they're friends and that's something Luke has never had in his life.

Secondly, Wingard has made a film career out of getting short-film-based premises to extend to feature-length with a smoothness and lack of filler. While it might've been nice to hear David's backstory and the justifications of his motives spelled out in greater, more realized detail, Wingard and Barrett work well when they are not forced into an information dump on what is occurring on-screen. The only disruption, in fact, is when The Guest turns into more of an action film at the start of its third act. However, if we got more of an explanation of who David was, Wingard and Barrett might've turned the film into more of a lukewarm crime-drama procedural than an effective thriller.

For the most part, The Guest works on the same basis as most of Wingard's young but ambitious filmography and that's by operating as a concise little chiller with an affinity for plot-progression, minor details, and love for a small-scale. Dan Stevens gives a wonderful performance that helps bring out his own characters' emotions during moments like the closing scenes, and the atmosphere is enjoyably taut not only to create a strong film but to strengthen the premise's inherently nerve-wracking potential in the best possible way.

Starring: Dan Stevens, Maika Monroe, Brendan Meyer, Sheila Kelley, and Leland Orser. Directed by: Adam Wingard.