Weird lost in favor of keeping Austin expensive, with all the weird people who gave the city its flavor being priced out long ago. Even all the Brooklyn transplants who resurrected downtown in the aughts were pushed out less than a decade later by skyrocketing rents.
Many people have to work two jobs just to keep up and can’t enjoy living in Austin themselves, as they are always at work or unconscious. And you will need roommates, lots and lots of roommates. As Andres highlights so brilliantly, we have arrived at a time where many people have to depend on a delicate web of other people’s resources in order to survive.
Rent Free captures the high-wire drama of impossible rents perfectly, a subject that a lot more movies should be made about. On each location where the characters stay, the address and cost of living there are displayed for vicious context. I know we all want to escape our troubles, but sometimes it feels so good to see the biggest troubles acknowledged on the big screen.
We are in a full-blown national housing emergency decades in the making, and Andres needs to be commended for not only making a movie about it but also managing to squeeze some laughs out of it as well. You also get to see guys getting it on quite a bit.
Jordan and Anna share a tense conversation over dinner in Rent Free.
“…a subject that a lot more movies should be made about.”
Nothing graphic but still very blatant, we are treated to matter of fact male on male intimacy in several spots. But that is only the homoerotic icing, while the cake consists of cost-of-living matters. What is remarkable is Rent Free is that it is not a romance comedy like many LGBTQ+ films end up being, with the focus being survival instead of intimacy.
However, it also explores the complexities of a deep friendship between two people who could be involved, but are not. This is one of the elements that keeps this work refreshing and unpredictable. It also gives desperately needed screen time to male bisexuality, which only has a microscopic fraction of the representation that female bisexuality has in movies.
Trevino’s performance as a bisexual character rings true on both sides of the bell. Roberts pulls off the impossible task of being both frustrating and likable simultaneously, making his acting job completely magnetic with viewer engagement. The fact that these gay/bi vibes seamlessly incorporate into the Austin landscape only shows how much sugar Austin had in its tank in the first place, that is, it isn’t just Oil Can Harry’s late night on weekends.
Rent Free is a lot more than Slacker meets Grindr, though, as the film is a very humorous take on the very serious topic of rent and how it rules our lives. Andre works it both ways with lots of success.
"… captures the high wire drama of impossible rents perfectly."
