94) Rent-A-Pal (2020)

"There's nothing like a little friendly competition, right pal?"

Director

Jon Stevenson

Cast

Brian Landis Folkins - David Brower

Wil Wheaton - Andy

Kathleen Brady - Lucille Brower

Amy Rutledge - Lisa

 

The 2020 movie Rent-A-Pal is as fitting a movie to watch among the "Nostalgic Horror Rental" reviews I've been posting recently as I approach review number 100. It's not necessarily a rental for me. But it's a thriller surrounding a VHS tape, so it fits just as well.

Rent-A-Pal takes place in the 1990s sometime, and centers on lonely bachelor David Brower (Brian Landis Folins). 

He has been consulting a video dating service called "Video Rendezvous" for several months with no success in being matched with someone else.

Brower lives with this 70+ year old mother, Lucille (Kathleen Brady) who suffers from dementia. His father was a jazz musician and composer who killed himself 10 years before. This leaves David, the only child, unemployed as caring for his mom is a full-time duty. 

While stopping in to Video Rendezvous to make an updated video - an experience that goes poorly for David - he finds a copy of a video labeled "Rent-A-Friend" hidden in a display of VHS tapes near the front counter.  

He purchases it, and takes it home. 

The video immediately starts with his new "pal", dressed like he just walked off a family portrait, sitting in an easy chair amidst a solid white background. The set is a poorly dressed living room setting.
"Hi!" the guy in the video says. 
His name is Andy (Wil Wheaton) and the video progresses like a conversation between two people meeting each other for the first time. Andy pauses to allow the viewer to answer his questions.

This initial viewing is too awkward for David, so he turns it off.

The receptionist at Video Rendezvous calls him the next morning letting him know a girl named Lisa wants to match with him after watching his updated tape. 

He goes there right away, and when he gets to the reception desk, David realizes he forgot his wallet. He rushes back to the house, grabs it, and hurries back. But when he returns, it turns out Lisa has already matched with someone else. 

Heavy hearted, David checks out her tape anyways to see what he lost out on. It turns out they have a lot in common. Lisa would certainly have been an ideal match. 

So, he turns on Rent-A-Pal and begins confiding in Andy. He shares how his attempts to find romance seem to lead to nowhere. David also talks about how abusive his mother was. And Andy shares a story about a disatrous date to a prom. Andy then convinces David to be his friend. 

David keeps returning to the tape for the sake of social interaction, night after night, drinking, talking, playing cards, and sharing personal stories. 

After some time goes by, Video Rendezvous calls David to tell him Lisa's match didn't work out, and that she would like to match with him.

They connect for a date at an arcade roller rink, and the two couldn't have it off any better.

David and Lisa end the night setting up a date for the next day.

Wil Wheaton as "Andy" in Rent-A-Pal.

Nearly beside himself with joy, David rushes home and plays his Rent-A-Pal video to tell Andy about his night.

Andy, however, appears to be jealous and angry, convincing him to call off the date. Evidently,  they were going to play cards the same night.

Things take a dark turn from there to the point where David mixes reality with the rented buddy on his low-budget friendship tape. 

There's a fair amount of movies involving a main character with a social life that's dependent on something inanimate rather than someone real. 

The 2013 movie Her with Joaquin Phoenix is one such movie. Also, the 2011 Mel Gibson film Beaver is another. 

And perhaps Peter Sellers' classic movie Being There (1979) - a film about a man whose knowledge of the outside world is solely from what he's watched on TV - might fall into that sub-genre.. Well, perhaps the Sellers film is a bit of a stretch.

Anyhow, Rent-A-Pal is the first of such films I think I've seen with such a dark and tragic tone, making it the thriller it is. It pulled me in and kept me thinking about it after.

As drawing as Rent-A-Pal is, there's room for more. It felt a little lacking. I was really invested in the character David. While watching, part of me wanted to see David attempt to locate Andy in person. I honestly thought that's where the movie would go, but it didn't even come close to that. There's a lot a movie can do with that scenario. It certainly wasn't a predictable story. I walked away surpised.

On the flip side, keeping Wil Wheaton's character in the confines of the TV screen with only the script his character is given within the movie's story maintains the mystifying, almost inexplicable nature of the video cassette.   

Or is Andy and the video what David makes them? 

The movie still works as a thriller, but left me baffled. My mind couldn't come to grips around David's dependence on Andy once he found a female match through Video Rendezvous. Who's more baffling? David, or the tape? 

The special features on the DVD includes Wheaton's complete video cassette performance which I felt compelled to watch. I noticed that it progresses through all the general experiences friends normally go through - introduction, comradery, intimacy through divulging personal secrets and experiences, humiliation, jealousy, forgiveness, and parting. All this in about 20 minutes of footage.

Brian Landis Folkins in Rent-A-Pal.

To think Wil Wheaton's acting is just him talking to a camera rather than David is impressive. Yet, the movie makes it work perfectly, and convingly. Wheaton manages to be creepy enough in the confines of a TV screen. He's well cast, and has the best voice to really pull off a character like Andy.

Folkins plays a truly sympathetic character. It's easy to feel sorry for David. His performance is fantastic.

Rent-A-Pal is still a movie that works as a thriller, and I found it entertaining, intense at times, tragic, and well made over all. With the neverending surge of eighties and nineties nostalgia being today's trend, this movie gives a seemingly original twist on the thriller genre centering on VHS tapes.