In the House Reviews

A slick psychological thriller that veers into dark comedy the more absurd it gets, "In the House" demonstrates the dangers of addiction -- not to sex or drugs, but to story.

Full Review | Original Score: B+

The seductions of storytelling drive "In the House," a cleverly structured comic thriller rich with narrative trickery and macabre humor.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

It's good, devious fun.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

Captures why we do what we do, and the extent to which stories reflect both the writer and the reader.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

"In the House" might well be called "In the Story" because that's where it plays out: the house in the story and the story in the house.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

It's amusing and unexpected, capturing the compulsive spirit of writing with wit and attention to mischief that keeps it unpredictable to the very end.

Full Review | Original Score: B+

One of Ozon's best.

Full Review

The result is endlessly playful, although the rules of the game, in Ozon's hands, could hardly be graver, and what can be at stake, in the act of storytelling, has seldom been more elegantly sketched.

Full Review

A little kinky, a little creepy, and quite clever and literary.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Ozon is an artful provocateur and observer of human nature.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

To watch it is to be simultaneously seduced and interrogated.

Full Review

...joins a handful of clever films where fiction and reality merge, like "Adaptation" or Zoe Kazan's more recent "Ruby Sparks." It's thrilling, funny, smart and hugely entertaining, more satisfying than the director's breakout film.

Full Review | Original Score: A-

François Ozon's slow-burn comic thriller is a sensitive observation of a global race-to-the-bottom that is devaluing culture in all of its varied forms.

Full Review | Original Score: B+

A sharp, enticing psychological cat-and-mouse game. Its gleeful dark wit comes from manipulations, voyeurism, the idea that we all invade each other's lives and thoughts.

Full Review

Darkly funny and utterly compelling, it's arguably the best teacher-student movie since 1999's Election.

Full Review

Less focused than most of (writer-director Francois) Ozon's previous films. It is difficult to decide with which character we as viewers/pseudo-participants are supposed to empathize. More off-putting than fully satisfying in the end.

Full Review | Original Score: B-

With its wheels-within-wheels structure and ubiquitous jibber-jabber between neophyte and guide "In the House" is something of a lit major's "Inception."

Full Review | Original Score: 7.8/10

Mostly, the film's a confident, very sophisticated meditation on art - on why we need it, how we identify with it and what it gives our lives. And what it can't replace.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

The final scene is so open-ended that like Germain, you won't want the story to end.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Even though the buildup doesn't yield the anticipated payoff, [In the House] remains a slick, artful and highly entertaining ride.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5