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Set in the midst of the 2009 housing crisis, this darkly comedic story follows Cassie Fowler, a single mom and struggling realtor whose life goes off the rails when she witnesses a murder.
There are some movies that come along, crowded with outstanding actors and a terrific behind-the-scenes crew, that leaves you wanting more. Unfortunately, “Arizona” is not that film. While it does have a top-notch cast, including Danny McBride, Rosemarie DeWitt, Luke Wilson, and David Alan Grier, and an excellent crew, including director Jonathan Watson and cinematographer Drew Daniels, regrettably, the combined talents of all involved do not gel together and so we are left with a movie that most certainly looks beautiful, but is nothing more than a hollow shell.
In the mid-2000s, America experienced a housing boom, the likes of which had never been seen before and sales went through the roof. People were buying left and right, and not just residential homes for themselves but rental properties too. Rental properties were a huge part of the housing boom, I know, I worked in the mortgage industry during that time period and the majority of houses being bought were rental and vacation properties. But in 2009, it all came crashing down. The housing bubble burst when demand decreased while supply increased, resulting in falling prices. People were left with properties they initially thought they could afford but now realized they couldn’t and there were record numbers of foreclosures.
That’s the backstory to “Arizona.” The story takes place during the housing crisis of 2009 and as the movie begins, we are introduced to Cassie (Rosemarie DeWitt), a single mother and real estate agent who lives in the desert in a remote suburb of Arizona. The majority of houses in her estate are foreclosed on and are for sale but every day, she goes to work, doing her best to sell properties to potential buyers. One morning, while in her office, Cassie receives a phone call from her bank, informing her that her mortgage payment is three months past due. She steps into a nearby empty room so her nosey and sexist boss, Gary (Seth Rogen), can’t hear her conversation and while she is on the phone, a disgruntled home buyer, Sonny (Danny McBride), storms into the office. He immediately starts berating Gary for selling him a house he knew he couldn’t afford and after a while, Gary tries to throw him out. When the two men engage in a physical altercation, Sonny pushes Gary up against the railings but he loses his balance and falls to his death. In the next room, Cassie has witnessed the whole event and struck with fear, she cannot move, even when Sonny notices her through the window. He slowly approaches her and then quickly knocks her unconscious.
She wakes up later in the day in Sonny’s living room, tied to a chair. He starts rambling on about how his wife recently left him after he bought the house for them as a family and now he can’t afford the payments by himself. Cassie tries to relate to him by telling him that she is three months past due with her own payments and just when it looks like he will let her go, his ex-wife, Vicki (Kaitlin Olson), unexpectedly drops by. Puzzled by the sight of a strange woman tied to a chair in the living room, Cassie starts shouting for help but before Vicki can do anything, Sonny knocks her out too. When she wakes up, tied to a chair next to Cassie, she starts belittling and criticizing him until he finally snaps, smashing her head in with a brick. Cassie tries to empathize with him, stating that Vicki had no right to say the mean and hurtful things she said but Sonny can see right through her scheme to escape. When he discovers she has a teenage daughter, Morgan (Lolli Sorenson), he makes his way to her house, where he kidnaps her and brings her back to his place. With Cassie and Morgan back together again, they wait for the right moment to escape into the street but being unfamiliar with this new estate, they go from empty house to house, trying to evade Sonny.
Out of sheer desperation, and fearing for both hers and Morgan’s lives, Cassie calls her ex-husband, Scott (Luke Wilson), who lives in Phoenix, and manages to tell him that she and Morgan are in danger and gives the name of the estate they are in before being cut off. Wanting to make sure his ex-wife and daughter are okay, he gets in his car, along with his new girlfriend, Kelsey (Elizabeth Gillies), and makes his way north. With Sonny determined to kill both Morgan and Cassie, who witnessed him killing his ex-wife, he will stop at nothing to track them down. When Scott finally makes it to the estate, there is a big confrontation between him, Sonny, and Cassie and Morgan but things do not go according to plan!
The overall story is not bad, it’s in the execution of the characters and their motivations, or lack thereof, where everything falls apart. Characters do and say things that make no sense to the overall narrative. We know absolutely nothing about these people, and what little backstory we are given, doesn’t amount to much because, by the end of the film, we just don’t care about them. Everyone seems apathetic and self-absorbed, they are each the center of their own universe and nothing outside of them matters. Cassie’s boss is a sexist bigot, Sonny is a psychopath because he’s on the verge of losing his house and his wife and kids left him, Cassie lies to prospective buyers about having a happy family life in order to make a sale, her daughter Morgan cares only about herself and no one else, and Vicki, what little we see of her, is an obnoxious loudmouth who cares only about her looks. When things go south, and everyone’s world is turned upside down, you just don’t care about these individualistic people and hope that Sonny will do the world a favor and kill them all, and then turn the gun on himself. One can wish.
Available on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray & DVD October 16th
