THE ARTFUL LODGER

Room for Rent explores ultimate horror — a house guest who refuses to leave

Film history is full of comedies — and not a few thrillers — about unexpected, unwanted house guests who just. Won’t. Leave. The latest of these, from Canadian writer-director Matthew Atkinson, falls squarely in the comedy vein, though not without a hint of horror below the surface.

Room for Rent stars Mark Little as Mitch, who won the lottery when he was in high-school and managed to fritter away $3.5 million with nothing to show for it, unless you count his prototype “Evaporella,” an umbrella that

dries itself so you don’t have to bring it in wet.

Mitch is now living job-and-rent-free with his parents (Mark McKinney, Stephnie Weir), but when Dad retires they decide to make up for the shortfall by renting out a spare room. Enter Carl, played by Brett Gelman, grinning wolfishly and looking like Paul Giamatti’s younger brother.

Of course, Carl quickly rubs Mitch the wrong way, but the parents see only a polite guest who gives them money and helps with chores, neither of which Mitch has ever done. And of course things grow quietly more heated between the two men, especially when Mitch’s still angry ex-girlfriend (Carla Gallo) enters the picture.

The screenplay is a little thin — it’s never quite clear why Mitch remains so thoroughly unemployable — but the performances are good, with Gelman particularly committed to the cause. And Atkinson has fun sprinkling the story with mentions of Mitch’s other failed inventions, which I won’t spoil here. As short-term accommodation in a movie theatre, you could do worse.

ROOM FOR RENT ★★ 1/2 out of 5 Cast: Mark Little, Brett Gelman, Carla Gallo Director: Matthew Atkinson Duration: 1 h 29 m

D FILMS Mark Little, front, stars as an unemployable son living with his parents after frittering away a lottery win in the new movie Room for Rent. His world is rocked when a lodger played by Brett Gelman moves in.