Ramin Bahrani
99 Homes

THE REVIEW

Cinema of crisis. "Gangs of New York" and "There Will Be Blood" went directly back to the birth of the American dream, "Margin Call" tackled the issue by focusing on finance, as did "The Wolf of Wall Street" (although with more comedic tones). David Cronenberg’s "Cosmopolis" directly pointed the gun at capitalism, delving into the future of our society, while the recent "A Most Violent Year" was a chronicle of entrepreneurship during another dark moment for the American economy. "99 Homes" by the director Ramin Bahrani, of Iranian descent, draws from here and there and becomes another chapter in the cinematic narrative of the great crisis that has persisted for years.

Reality inevitably falls on cinema, and the effects of the recession, widespread poverty, and financial crisis are just some of the themes that have forcefully entered the film agenda of late. 99 Homes, released in the States in 2015, is a film that fits into this new "trend."

By now, in his seventh feature film, Bahrani has full awareness of his means and brings to the big screen a work that operates on two levels: on one hand, as a true "report" on the real estate and banking environment that has left thousands of Americans out in the street, and on the other by telling the story of Dennis (Andrew Garfield), who experiences eviction and injustice firsthand.

From an "investigative" perspective, the film works well and explains the workings of that perverse game by which banks, thanks to the complicity of real estate companies, build their fortunes by defrauding the government and evicting entire families without hesitation. Build wealth, no matter how. "Only one out of a hundred gets on the Ark" says entrepreneur Rick Carver, played by an again extraordinary Michael Shannon (and a Golden Globe nominee). His Rick is the businessman who profits from others' pain, deceives the law but is also its representative, and understands that "it's not important to sell houses, but to own houses."

On the other side, the purely narrative aspect, Bahrani's work functions significantly less, and Dennis's improbable "rise" under the tutelage of the once-despised Rick becomes a choice that essentially reveals everything to the viewer. Dennis's story transforms into that of the young "self-made man" who discovers the moral wounds of social ambition, having become one of those ready to get on the Ark. But the ending is inevitably predictable.

Bahrani chooses to shoot with a quasi-documentary style, and the repeated use of a handheld camera is a clear symptom of this. However, realism is lost when the story decides to focus entirely on sentimentality for its own sake. It is indeed clear that Bahrani is totally politically aligned to the benefit of coherence but to the detriment of the narrative, which becomes one-sided and at times banal.