Reptile opens cold before crawling into a murder mystery police procedural. Will Grady (Justin Timberlake) and Summer Elswick (Matilda Lutz) are in a relationship, and they both work with Will’s family’s high-end real estate company. They’re getting a sprawling house ready for resale, but the discovery of mysterious damage in the cupboards and a snake skin shed in the living room feel less than homey. It’s also clear that Will and Summer’s relationship is stiff and strained. And when Summer gossips with her friend about the meaning of a dream her friend suggests Summer is “afraid of getting caught.” But, for what? The movie goes from moody to dark when a brutal murder introduces a world weary detective, Tom Nichols (Benicio Del Toro). As he searches for the truth behind family secrets and family money, he’s confronted with the illusions at the center of his own life.
Reptile director and co-writer Grant Singer (along with Del Toro and Benjamin Brewer) is known for his music videos for artists like Lorde and Sam Smith. Reptile is his feature debut, but it’s no surprise that Reptile features an ominous score and lots of stylish song drops along the way. Singer even unnaturally distorts and slows the end of Evie Sands’ “Angel of the Morning” in one scene, uniquely drawing attention to the music being played over the scene. It speaks to Singer’s expertise that music is nearly omnipresent here, but it never gets in the way or feels overbearing.
Perhaps more surprising is the performances Singer coaxes from his fantastic cast. Benicio Del Toro and Alicia Silverstone (she plays his wife, Judy) have the chemistry of a real loving married couple here, and Timberlake is right on as the successful but pampered Will Grady under the watchful eye of his overbearing mother Camille (Frances Fisher). It’s great to see Eric Bogosian back on the big screen as Tom’s police captain, and Michael Pitt is his always beautifully creepy self as a suspect who may have been wronged by the Gradys. Singer’s cast is loaded with aces, but his subtle storytelling and bare bones dialogue might have come off plodding or flat. Instead the director and editor Kevin Hickman steer these actors through strong performances across the board, bringing emotional depth and unfailing realism to scene after scene. Add the consistently moody and mysterious tone that Singer maintains from his first frames and Reptile is gripping and melancholy — a first rate police procedural.
The real estate business and ideas about family and home are all floating in the background of Reptile. And the police investigation takes viewers into many domestic spaces that tell us about the people who live — or died — in them. Empty estates and old country churches and squalid working class bachelor pads all add to Reptile’s secret identity as a haunted house film, just in time for spooky movie season. When the police are first investigating the crime scene you can hear Bogosian’s police captain off-screen, admonishing a rookie about all the nooks and crannies an old house might have – the unexpected back stairways and out buildings where evidence or even suspects might be hiding. The background dialog is like a cypher for this whole film about hidden lives, behind closed doors where we dwell together, alone with our secret selves, even in the intimacy of loving families. Most of our secrets aren’t harmful and some of them are kept out of care for others, and the characters in Reptile have lots of those secrets. But sometimes secrets are dangerous and even deadly to those closest to us. Like a still snake in the grass, Reptile has those secrets too.
Reptile is currently streaming on Netflix.
Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer/songwriter based in East Nashville. Find out more about his projects at www.joenolan.com.