Private Property – Film Review

A struggling actress and housewife becomes involved with her new gardener, who gives her the attention and sensitivity she craves. However, he is not who he seems.

Chadd Harbold‘s Private Property is one of the strangest films I’ve seen so far this year. It definitely left me feeling very cold, but not in a good way. Sometimes, a thriller will be so gripping that, by the time the end credits roll, you find yourself feeling chilly. It’s a rare feeling and not many films make me feel that way, but when it does happen to me, it’s an absolutely incredible albeit bizarre feeling.

However, this film left me feeling cold in a negative way. The film’s atmosphere is full of gloom and a lot of the film utilizes blue colors, which a lot of thrillers do. The problem is that the film simply wasn’t thrilling. In fact, the majority of the time I was convinced that I was actually watching a super cheesy romance film with a charming lead in Ashley Benson and a strange and uncomfortable Shiloh Fernandez alongside her.

Throughout the entire movie, Harbold leads us to believe that in some baffling way, these two characters are actually attracted to each other, but while watching the film, it’s genuinely cringe-worthy to watch them even do the most mundane of things. Even just the two of them sitting down and eating a meal together is so painfully awkward to the point where you’ll want to look away. This wouldn’t be a problem if this was the intention of the story, but it’s not. Harbold wants us to believe that they could be a legitimate match, but it’s so phony.

And it all comes back to the question of how in the world this is even considered a thriller. About an hour of this eighty-six-minute movie is filled with strange romantic drama whereas the final twenty-six minutes is where the “thrills” kick in. I use quotation marks around thrills because this film isn’t even close to being remotely thrilling. The script doesn’t flesh out its characters at all, it’s riddled with tons of exposition, and saves every big “twist” for its final ten minutes. This script is so bad, it’s not even a first draft.

The performances are… okay. They’re nothing to rave about but they’re also not awful. Ashley Benson definitely tries her best to work her acting magic while Shiloh Fernandez just kind of does whatever he wants to. Perhaps they’re actually both great actors, but you wouldn’t be able to tell from this movie because A) their chemistry is terrible and B) the script gives them next to nothing to do.

Private Property is a baffling mix of romantic melodrama and cheap thrills with two of the most awkward performances of the year so far.