Talk about a swing and a miss. Very strong performances fail to save a sci-fi flick that the director just wasn’t up to handling the central relationship complexities and slightly twisty plot that he himself wrote. A couple is offered $50,000 to stay in a house for a month as part of an ostensible relationship study that turns out to be something darker. The palpable chemistry between the lead actors (the woman of whom was actually the writer/director’s wife) gets this off to a very strong start, but the obviously contrived and sometimes difficult-to-follow way in which the “drama” develops breaks the spell and as the action gets harder to believe and the plot gets more confusing the film simply never recovers. Disappointing, it started out looking like it was really going to be good. Picture a “Black Mirror” episode directed by someone who just wasn’t adept at handling plot twists.
