‘Rent Free’ Wants Twentysomethings to Finally Grow the Hell Up

Are you really an adult if you haven’t couch-surfed for at least a brief period of your life? The vagabond in me, who once slept on his friend’s pull-out sofa for a month between apartments, would say no. Bed-hopping from place to place builds character, instills grit, and makes you tenacious! But the real truth is that no one enjoys taking advantage of someone else’s generosity, especially when it’s out of necessity.

That is, unless you’re the boys of Rent Free, a delightfully caustic new indie comedy premiering at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival. The film is all about trying to ride out a year of your twenties without paying for any of it. It’s a fantasy that sounds easy enough to make into a reality with a little perseverance, but one that’s much more difficult to bear than you realize once you’re actually in it. Besides debasing yourself to beg friends for a place to crash, it’s also emotionally and spiritually exhausting to not have a place to call your own.

That’s the feeling that Ben (Jacob Roberts) and Jordan (David Treviño), the two best friends at the film’s core, eventually find themselves entrenched in, after their initial excitement about their plan begins to sour. Jordan and Ben have been close for 15 years, and it’s that closeness that makes the both of them think they can successfully go an entire calendar year without paying rent. If they can avoid a proper lease, and pick up enough odd jobs, they might even be able to save up for a big move from Austin to New York. Such a laborious plan causes an inevitable strain on their relationship, one that could easily grow trite in the wrong hands. But writer-director Fernando Andrés graceful touch makes Ben and Jordan’s bond feel special. That distinct perspective and Andrés’ stylistic filmmaking turn Rent Free into an enjoyable—and bleakly relatable—journey through the unease of young adulthood.

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