You Should Have Left Review

I read somewhere that actor Kevin Bacon and director/screenwriter David Koepp really wanted to work together again, having previously released 1999's "Stir of Echoes." Why, then, did the two decide to settle on something like "You Should Have Left?" It's not quite a psychological thriller, not quite a haunted house picture, not quite a romantic drama, and by no means any good. It's a messy, clumsy, confused, confusing, and all-around disinteresting direct-to-streaming release that is an absolute waste of the talents of Kevin Bacon, perhaps the most famous but underutilized actor in Hollywood.

He gives it everything he's got, able to show an entire spectrum of emotions with just his face, able to turn on a dime with the slightest twitch of a muscle, but he ends up being an object onscreen. The camera spends most of its time gawking at the gracefully aged actor, twisting and turning as he tries to fill in the blanks left by the leadened screenplay.

In "You Should Have Left," he plays a wealthy retiree married to his much younger second wife, played with appeal by Amanda Seyfried. The couple and his daughter rent a mysterious house in Wales, before she, an actress, must travel for her next shoot. It's established early that he's got trust issues, uncomfortable when he shows up one day to her set, only to find she's filming a sex scene. Later in the runtime they fight, and he throws accusations of infidelity around. She doesn't admit to anything, and he never really apologizes, and they never real make up- it's pointless romantic tension that's built up for a resolution that doesn't exist.

Who's to blame? The film likes to imply that the vacation house is the cause for the chaos. It constantly adds rooms to itself, changing size as they walk down the halls and enter rooms. It's a fabulous looking place, and Koepp stages a lot of shots with a sense of discomfort, as you, the viewer, also don't know which room, new or known, the characters will enter next.

But here lies a critical problem, as you find yourself not confident the movie in front of you; you never know if the family is crazy and the house never morphs, or if the morphing house is making them crazy. Adding to the mistrust is that once everything is out in the open, there is no explanation as to why, not for the residence or the actors. It's focus on ambiguity does not have you wondering once the credits roll, it leaves you frustrated; perhaps a more cohesive execution could have offered a more satisfying reason behind all this.

You marvel at the mansion and praise the performances, but their reason for coexisting is reduced to a bunch of dream sequences, a few jump scares, and a production design team and casting department that desperately deserve a raise.