Average Rating: 5/10
Reviews Counted: 47
Fresh: 18 | Rotten: 29
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 4.9/10
Critic Reviews: 18
Fresh: 7 | Rotten: 11
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 2,804
War brings together a disillusioned soldier and a sweet but delusional woman in this romantic comedy-drama from director Andrei Konchalovsky. A small Russian mental hospital near the border of Chechnya is home to a group of eccentric but harmless patients, among them Janna (Julia Vysotsky), a cheerful woman who likes to play accordion and is convinced pop singer Bryan Adams is her fiancé; over-excitable Vika (Marina Politseymako); and highly prolific would-be poet Ali (Stanislav Varkki). When
Apr 25, 2003 Wide
Oct 28, 2003
Paramount Classics
All Critics (49) | Top Critics (20) | Fresh (18) | Rotten (29) | DVD (4)
Vysotsky projects an essential sunniness that helps keep the film from turning maudlin.
It ultimately feels like a folly that sounded great in the filmmaker's head, so great that he had to be put on screen, where it flounders around with no small degree of embarrassment.
With its cast of nauseatingly lovable lunatics, House of Fools may make you feel like you've been tricked into suffering through the Kevin Spacey flick K-Pax with subtitles.
Ruined from the start by its insulting depiction of mental illness.
The misery I suffered in the Russian horror House of Fools, directed by the ridiculously overrated Andrei Konchalovsky, does deserve special scorn, but I don't have the stomach to rehash it.
A kindly film with a generous heart beaming through the discordant rumblings of useless wars.
Tiresome!
It's hard to dislike a movie that identifies Russian mental patients as Bryan Adams' core audience.
It may be based on a true story, but another filmmaker told it before -- and better.
Janna, played with endearing toughness by Julia Vysotsky, is the heart of this film.
Unbelievably insensitive in its depiction of the mentally ill.
It's an odd mix to combine the harsh reality of war with the surreal world of mental patients. This makes for a bizarre movie, but it has some really tender moments.
War is insane. Insane people are cute. Bryan Adams is God. There, now that you've got these three principles down, you don't need to see House of Fools.
Sub-Fellini nonsense.
The use of Bryan Adams as the madwoman's imagined paramour is indicative of just how mediocre this movie is.
Too disjointed, derivative and stylistically clumsy to be much more than an irritant.
There's not much to Konchalovsky's tale ... but it's often beautifully told; a gentle fantasy of a harsh time.
As Janna demonstrates, old assumptions and passions certainly die hard. And the worst is when they don't die at all.
Often trying and not wholly successful but highly ambitious and ultimately rewarding.
A Russian docu-drama that's intriguing for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the BEAUTIFUL and talented Yuliya Vysotskaya. Plus, it's a true story. And it's got Bryan Adams (yes, THAT Bryan Adams!).
January 20, 2009
Super Reviewer
A very cliched view of a mental hospital that happens to get caught up in the Russian-Chechen war. Occasionally amusing war humour and an impressive helicopter crash is all this movie has to offer.
February 15, 2007Super Reviewer
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