In the House Reviews
Top CriticThe seductions of storytelling drive "In the House," a cleverly structured comic thriller rich with narrative trickery and macabre humor.
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| Original Score: 3/4
"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.
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| Original Score: 3/4
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.
Ozon is an artful provocateur and observer of human nature.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
Darkly funny and utterly compelling, it's arguably the best teacher-student movie since 1999's Election.
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."
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| 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.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
'In the House" promises to be a social satire with a flash of Hitchcockian menace, but gradually it turns into a routine thumb-sucker on reality versus fiction.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
The final scene is so open-ended that like Germain, you won't want the story to end.
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| Original Score: 4/5
A celebration of storytelling's power.
The dexterity of the actors and their director is not quite enough, and as "In the House" accelerates, it also starts to sputter, piling on incidents and revelations that cause its web of implications to unravel.
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| Original Score: 2.5/5
With its complex look at storytelling, imagination and the teacher-student dynamic, In the House is an elaborate cinematic fresco.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
Ozon keeps sliding between genres ("Now we are in bad farce," scolds the teacher) to explore what really interests him - the creative process itself.
Neither Claude nor Ozon comes up with a satisfying finish to this intriguing setup. But because they're both so committed to seducing their audience, it's a lot of fun watching them try.
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| Original Score: 3/5
The heat turns chilly before it ends, but for the most part, François Ozon is back in the catbird seat with In the House.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Luchini's dependable deadpan goes a long way toward making the puzzle pieces snap pleasingly into place, but as with most such endeavors, In the House is about its own construction and nothing more.
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| Original Score: 2/5
In the House creates something far more original than the same old heart-pounding exercise.
A witty, naughty, insight-packed provocation which never takes its seriousness too seriously.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
