The science fiction thriller The Last House, starring Wagner Moura and Greta Lee, has premiered on Netflix. Directed by Louis Leterrier, the film follows a family of four trapped inside their Seattle home by a mysterious rainstorm that seals their doors.
The rainstorm, which the source notes has mystical properties of unknown origin, traps the residents inside just before Christmas and cuts off all communication. The film is a co-production between the United Kingdom, France and the United States, with a runtime of one hour and 52 minutes, and was released on August 7.
Moura, who the source notes recently received an Oscar nomination, plays Jason. He is a father who returns in peace from an early morning fishing trip while his wife and children are sleeping, arriving just before the storm hits. Lee plays his wife Ann. Riley Chunn and Noah Alexander Sosnowski play their children, eight year old Ruth and 12 year old Graham.
Trapped by the storm
The story begins with Jason returning home. Clouds loom in his rearview mirror, but Seattle is a city known for its rain, especially around Christmas, and he does not attach much importance to the weather.
The rain soon seals the doors in a way the characters cannot explain. With no way to communicate with the outside world, the family and their neighbors quickly figure out how to use marker boards and chalkboards in their windows to share messages. None of the residents have any information about what caused the event, leading to the usual theories about aliens or the government.
The family has enough canned food to last a couple of months, but problems quickly arise. It is unclear how long their water and electricity will last. Their elderly retriever, Cassidy, runs out of medicine. The house, which the couple paid a mortgage for before the cataclysm, begins to develop threatening cracks. As the water level rises outside, wolves, bears and monsters that are initially hard to see begin to appear at the flooded windows.
The director carefully observes a rule established at the beginning of the movie. The entire action of the 112 minute film does not leave the walls of the characters' home.
London stands in for Seattle
The source notes that Leterrier's direction serves as a mark of quality for the film. The French director launched the Transporter action franchise at the beginning of the millennium, establishing the career of British actor Jason Statham. He later went to Hollywood and directed the Marvel superhero film The Incredible Hulk, the nostalgic Greek mythology fantasy Clash of the Titans and the heist movie Now You See Me. The source suggests his work on the film about five magicians reconciled him with a desire to use sleight of hand at every opportunity.
He also produced the French mystery series Lupin for Netflix and directed Fast X, the latest installment in the Fast and Furious franchise, which features circus mayhem from actor Jason Momoa.
For The Last House, Leterrier filmed in London, using the British capital to stand in for Seattle. The source attributes this decision to production expediency and an attempt to capture the unique atmosphere of the city. The script uses the bad weather as a reliable cover to create an old-world gothic atmosphere and execute deceptive maneuvers to mislead the audience, who might expect a simple variation on the 2018 horror film A Quiet Place.
Instead, the genre shifts constantly on every plot twist, blending elements of a home invasion thriller, a disaster movie and a family saga. The story draws on a wide circle of science fiction relatives, including The War of the Worlds, the 1898 novel by H.G. Wells about a Martian invasion, and The Day of the Triffids, a 1951 post-apocalyptic novel by John Wyndham. It also shares similarities with Monsters, the 2010 debut film by British director Gareth Edwards.
Billboard promotion in Los Angeles
To promote the release, Netflix equipped a billboard on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles by building a living room inside. A resident lived in the furnished room, which included maps and books. They used a marker board to communicate with people walking past. The promotional installation lasted for only three days, which the source notes is not even enough time for the characters in the film to properly miss life on the outside.
Inside the film, the trapped family has few entertainments left. They pass the time with a box of dusty old vinyl records, mostly listening to the album Let's Dance by David Bowie. They also watch two DVDs: the 1997 action thriller Air Force One starring Harrison Ford, and the cheerful 1982 musical Annie directed by John Huston.
The family watches Annie more often, and the source suggests Leterrier, like Huston, particularly values professionalism in himself. He masterfully builds the tempo and rhythm, making the space of the house expand and shrink. These contractions rhyme with ecological motifs, starting with the unfortunate dog as the first agent, and expanding to include a skunk, a fox and a squirrel hanging around the house. As the situation worsens, the residents step by step approach the answer to what they are willing to do to survive.
Casting changes
Kingsley Ben-Adir was originally approved for the lead role of Jason. Ben-Adir is a British actor who recently played reggae musician Bob Marley in the biographical film Bob Marley: One Love, and former US President Barack Obama in the television miniseries The Comey Rule.
Ben-Adir is ten years younger than Moura. The source notes that his casting would have created a completely different dynamic with Lee, resulting in a somewhat different film. Moura's character instead starts as a handy head of the family who slowly descends into an exhausted despair that ultimately proves meaningful. The source suggests Moura is now fully ready to replace Pedro Pascal, star of The Last of Us and The Mandalorian, as the universal father figure in Hollywood.
Lee, who starred in the romantic drama Past Lives, masterfully plays a character who is initially unpleasant at first glance, but completely authentic. The two child actors provide flawless supporting performances that match the synergy of the adult stars. The source suggests the family would be interesting to watch even without the cataclysm, perhaps as a prestige soap opera.
Leterrier packs a plot into 112 minutes that under other circumstances could easily be stretched into an eight or 12 episode television season. The source notes that this dramaturgical generosity and the absence of smartphones in the footage make the film feel less tied to the present day.
While references to the frustrations of the Covid pandemic seem obvious, the source notes that disaster movies about non-humanoid invasions existed long before 2020. A Quiet Place looks like an ideal pandemic blockbuster, even though it came out before the crisis. Viewership for the 2011 Steven Soderbergh film Contagion jumped on Netflix in 2020, and the source suggests The Last House could see a similar surge if an analogous situation occurs.
The source describes The Last House not as an instant classic, but as a film that will be remembered for a long time, noting that the horrors depicted do not feel entirely like fantasy. For now, the film can be watched both as preparation for a possible future and simply for pleasure.
