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Around three years ago, a film was released that could be described as a class conflict-themed suspense thriller featuring a memorably nice house with a secret basement. That film, of course, was Bong Joon Ho\u2019s Parasite, which took the world by storm on its way to winning a historic Academy Award for Best Picture, having already claimed the prestigious Palme d\u2019Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. It was a universally adored piece of work \u2013 praised for its Hitchcockian command of tension and its intelligent, nuanced portrayal of class relations \u2013 and is already regarded as something of a classic of 21st-century cinema.<\/p>\n
Now, in August 2022, another film is set for release which could also be described as a class conflict-themed suspense thriller featuring a memorably nice house with a secret basement. That<\/em>\u00a0film is Netflix\u2019s I Came By<\/a>, which stars George MacKay, Kelly Macdonald and Hugh Bonneville, and is directed by Under the Shadow\u2019s Babak Anvari. It follows events after graffiti artist Toby (MacKay) breaks into the house of a super-wealthy retired judge (Bonneville) only to uncover a ghastly secret lurking in the basement, one which will put him and those closest to him in a whole lot of danger.<\/p> Any similarities between the two films, it should be noted, are entirely coincidental \u2013 I Came By has been in development for several years and is based on an idea Anvari first had when he was at film school two decades ago \u2013 while the actual plot of Anvari\u2019s film also differs in a number of key ways. But there are a few too many echoes of Parasite not to invite comparisons, and it seems likely that many viewers will find their minds drifting to Bong\u2019s outstanding Oscar-winner at some point during I Came By\u2019s runtime.<\/p>\n The problem is that Parasite has set the bar for this kind of film so high that anything that covers similar ground is likely to suffer when placed alongside it \u2013 and it\u2019s hard to escape the fact that I Came By feels a little weak by comparison. For example, the tension in Bong\u2019s film \u2013 especially in its outstanding second half \u2013 barely lets up for a second, but in Anvari\u2019s film the plot is frequently hampered by numerous time jumps that only serve to disorientate the audience, while there are regular attempts to wrongfoot viewers with major twists and turns that often end up ruining any momentum from building.<\/p>\n