In the House Reviews
garyX
Super Reviewer
April 17, 2013
A bored teacher encourages a promising young student to write a story that results in him insinuating himself into the life of a middle class classmate for inspiration. In The House is one of those self aware deconstructions of the creative process, coming across as a kind of blending of Adaptation and The Lives Of Others. The core of the story is essentially the symbiotic relationship between story teller and his audience whose voyeuristic appetites are represented by the teacher whose need for an engaging narrative rather than the dreariness of day-to-day life result in unfortunate repercussions for all involved. The manipulative young student reminded me somewhat of the characters in Funny Games, although the approach is far more artistic rather than sadistic and Ernst Umhauer's performance has just the right combination of vulnerability and creepiness. The story does not have quite the impact it could have as his motivations are never fully explored but the final "Rear Window" scene is a really nice touch and it's a smart and intelligent little comic drama that will appeal to fans of Charlie Kaufman.
Saskia D
Super Reviewer
December 5, 2012
Did not leave an impression whatsoever. Ernst Umhauer's character annoyed the crap out of me. I saw it in the theater a couple of weeks ago, but I can't and don't care to remember what it was about.
Carlos M
Super Reviewer
November 6, 2012
A smart and fascinating drama that ingeniously dissolves the barrier that separates fiction from reality, as we witness a talented teenager using a curious ploy to draw his intrigued teacher into a witty meta-discussion on the production of a narrative work.
www.themoviewaffler.com
Super Reviewer
March 18, 2013
'Rear Window' meets 'Cyrano de Bergerac' in Ozon's brilliantly crafted psycho-thriller. Like Jimmy Stewart in Hitchcock's film, Germain becomes obsessed with a developing story which may or may not be true. The difference here is that Germain has the ability to manipulate the narrative himself, or does he? Though he takes the role of Cyrano to Claude's Christian, it's the young man who is really pulling the strings, manipulating his teacher's desire to find that one talent who makes his teaching job, and thus his life, worthwhile. Claude uses phrases and observations designed specifically to appeal to Germain's contempt for mainstream society. The teacher and his art-dealing wife literally drool as Claude describes his friend's mother (Seigner) as possessing "that distinctive odor of the middle-class woman".
Film-makers influenced by Hitchcock are two a penny (especially in France) but few seem to translate the humor of Hitch's movies into their own. Ozon's film is packed with laughs, most courtesy of Scott-Thomas, whose character seems an amalgamation of 'Rear Window's Grace Kelly and 'Vertigo's Barbara Bel Geddes. Like the former, she struggles to get her lover interested in her own passions. (Some of the film's best jokes come at the expense of the pretentious "art" she deals in, including such "masterpieces" as a swastika made of dildos). At one point, with the best intentions, she tries to involve herself in her husband's obsession, only to provoke his ire. The scene recalls Bel Geddes ill-judged unveiling of the tasteless painting which destroys her relationship with Stewart in 'Vertigo'.
Ozon uses sharp humor, combined with every cinematic trick in the book, to give us a wildly entertaining movie which feels like the bastard love child of Woody Allen and Claude Chabrol. Once you enter this house, you'll be in no rush to leave.
At the ironically titled 'Lycee Gustave Flaubert' high school, frustrated teacher Germain (Luchini) bemoans the lack of talent, or indeed interest, among the students of his Frenchclass. One evening however, while marking another crop of dull "How I spent my weekend" essays", he discovers a piece of writing by shy student Claude (Umhauer) which shows promise. Claude details how he befriended a boy in his class just to gain access to his house and establish relations with his mother, who he is attracted to. With Germain's encouragement, the young man continues to provide his teacher with literary details of his plan. As Claude's story begins to move into darker territory, Germain finds himself too involved to discourage his student, causing a strain on the relationship with his wife Jeanne (Scott-Thomas).
'Rear Window' meets 'Cyrano de Bergerac' in Ozon's brilliantly crafted psycho-thriller. Like Jimmy Stewart in Hitchcock's film, Germain becomes obsessed with a developing story which may or may not be true. The difference here is that Germain has the ability to manipulate the narrative himself, or does he? Though he takes the role of Cyrano to Claude's Christian, it's the young man who is really pulling the strings, manipulating his teacher's desire to find that one talent who makes his teaching job, and thus his life, worthwhile. Claude uses phrases and observations designed specifically to appeal to Germain's contempt for mainstream society. The teacher and his art-dealing wife literally drool as Claude describes his friend's mother (Seigner) as possessing "that distinctive odor of the middle-class woman".
Film-makers influenced by Hitchcock are two a penny (especially in France) but few seem to translate the humor of Hitch's movies into their own. Ozon's film is packed with laughs, most courtesy of Scott-Thomas, whose character seems an amalgamation of 'Rear Window's Grace Kelly and 'Vertigo's Barbara Bel Geddes. Like the former, she struggles to get her lover interested in her own passions. (Some of the film's best jokes come at the expense of the pretentious "art" she deals in, including such "masterpieces" as a swastika made of dildos). At one point, with the best intentions, she tries to involve herself in her husband's obsession, only to provoke his ire. The scene recalls Bel Geddes ill-judged unveiling of the tasteless painting which destroys her relationship with Stewart in 'Vertigo'.
Ozon uses sharp humor, combined with every cinematic trick in the book, to give us a wildly entertaining movie which feels like the bastard love child of Woody Allen and Claude Chabrol. Once you enter this house, you'll be in no rush to leave.
May 9, 2013
Very interestimg! It kept me guessing and my interest never waivered. It is like no other film I recall seeing. Very much worth seeking out. What a fine director Francois Ozon is! Worth looking for on DVD or On Demand if it doesn't play a theatre near you.
jbnyc
May 9, 2013
Couldn't wait to see this because I love both Kristin Scott Thomas and Fabrice Luchini, and they were as wonderful as usual. But the story just didn't work for me, it felt silly & creepy & contorted, and about half-way through I stopped being interested. Sadly I give this a thumbs down... but I'd still say see it if you love Kristin Scott Thomas and Fabrice Luchini, it will be worth it for that.
March 29, 2013
There was not a moment of boredom with this movie. I kept asking myself "What happens next?"
April 24, 2013
Slickly shot, the opening upbeat instrumental tune brings viewers instantly to the scenario of a joint action between a high school teacher (Luchini), a has-been below-bar writer and his finest pupil (Umhauer). With mutual assent, Umhauer (comes from a broken family and has to tend his maimed father all by himself) is encroaching one of his classmates' (Ughetto) domestic domain using the practical stalking horse - remedial lessons after school for the latter, whose perfect bourgeois life represents everything he is craving for, mostly a sensual middle-aged mother (Seigner). So he is writing down everything as a serial, detailing (fictional or not) what is happening inside the model family, and the teacher promises to read it, correct it, advice him how to become a real writer.
Obviously from the very first chapter, Luchini has been intoxicated by the story (after a serial of disasters from the retrograded youth, Umhauer's writing could never be more fetching), so is his wife (Thomas), a middle-class gallery owner who is in a dire situation and might lose the gallery if her new collection fail to please her new boss, twin sisters played by an unrecognisable Moreau. As we all fully aware, things will go haywire, and the reverberations will boomerang on someone, and in this case, it is Luchini himself, his life will disintegrate eventually.
Borrowing Umhauer's confession of using the present tense in his works, the film per se contains a certain present vibrancy which is extremely audience-friendly, engaging with a hefty gush of dialogs among its main characters (Luchini with Umhauer, Luchini with Thomas, and Umhauer's self narrative), whether it is florid edification, or common conversations, all fittingly satirise the banality and futility of the status quo one is facing or trapped, like it is said in the film, literature and art cannot teach a person anything, we learn by simply living our lives.
"Falling for your best friend's mother" is a gimmick always has its broad market, especially for a motherless young boy in his puberty, the otherwise corny infatuation here has been ingeniously conflated with a voyeuristic angle for Luchini/Thomas and all its viewers, with its ambiguous credibility, it plays out appositely under Ozon's helm, leaving every on-looker chewing on what has happened and anticipating the twist.
Speaking of the twist, whose concoction is not so fully-developed, but anyhow it is a pleasant achievement, one's seemly stable life can be undermined into a tailspin just like that, it is cinematic, but also cautionary.
Luchini embodies his character with wry self-knowledge, loquacious cadences, swankily entering my top 10 BEST LEADING ACTOR race. Umhauer is the opposite youngster, scrawny, reserved but occasionally glistens with a sinister grin, a very well casting choice. Thomas has really found her way in her French-speaking realm and Seigner, enclosed by a perpetual aura of ennui even during the squabble with her hubby (Ménochet), by comparison, underplays herself and looks like she needs a good rest.
The film ends with a fabulous mise-en-scene, various characters occupied by their own business (a protruding one involving two gun-shots), and we (like Luchini and Umhauer) occupy the front row, relish the privilege of peeping other peoples' lives, colourful, vivid but never satisfied.
Haven't been tracking Ozon's output for awhile (his previous entry for me is TIME TO LEAVE 2005, 7/10), IN THE HOUSE apparently heralds a pleasing return with his most confident pace and killing panache, delineates a spellbinding yarn withholds which part is really happening and which part is our young writer's fancy imagination.
Slickly shot, the opening upbeat instrumental tune brings viewers instantly to the scenario of a joint action between a high school teacher (Luchini), a has-been below-bar writer and his finest pupil (Umhauer). With mutual assent, Umhauer (comes from a broken family and has to tend his maimed father all by himself) is encroaching one of his classmates' (Ughetto) domestic domain using the practical stalking horse - remedial lessons after school for the latter, whose perfect bourgeois life represents everything he is craving for, mostly a sensual middle-aged mother (Seigner). So he is writing down everything as a serial, detailing (fictional or not) what is happening inside the model family, and the teacher promises to read it, correct it, advice him how to become a real writer.
Obviously from the very first chapter, Luchini has been intoxicated by the story (after a serial of disasters from the retrograded youth, Umhauer's writing could never be more fetching), so is his wife (Thomas), a middle-class gallery owner who is in a dire situation and might lose the gallery if her new collection fail to please her new boss, twin sisters played by an unrecognisable Moreau. As we all fully aware, things will go haywire, and the reverberations will boomerang on someone, and in this case, it is Luchini himself, his life will disintegrate eventually.
Borrowing Umhauer's confession of using the present tense in his works, the film per se contains a certain present vibrancy which is extremely audience-friendly, engaging with a hefty gush of dialogs among its main characters (Luchini with Umhauer, Luchini with Thomas, and Umhauer's self narrative), whether it is florid edification, or common conversations, all fittingly satirise the banality and futility of the status quo one is facing or trapped, like it is said in the film, literature and art cannot teach a person anything, we learn by simply living our lives.
"Falling for your best friend's mother" is a gimmick always has its broad market, especially for a motherless young boy in his puberty, the otherwise corny infatuation here has been ingeniously conflated with a voyeuristic angle for Luchini/Thomas and all its viewers, with its ambiguous credibility, it plays out appositely under Ozon's helm, leaving every on-looker chewing on what has happened and anticipating the twist.
Speaking of the twist, whose concoction is not so fully-developed, but anyhow it is a pleasant achievement, one's seemly stable life can be undermined into a tailspin just like that, it is cinematic, but also cautionary.
Luchini embodies his character with wry self-knowledge, loquacious cadences, swankily entering my top 10 BEST LEADING ACTOR race. Umhauer is the opposite youngster, scrawny, reserved but occasionally glistens with a sinister grin, a very well casting choice. Thomas has really found her way in her French-speaking realm and Seigner, enclosed by a perpetual aura of ennui even during the squabble with her hubby (Ménochet), by comparison, underplays herself and looks like she needs a good rest.
The film ends with a fabulous mise-en-scene, various characters occupied by their own business (a protruding one involving two gun-shots), and we (like Luchini and Umhauer) occupy the front row, relish the privilege of peeping other peoples' lives, colourful, vivid but never satisfied.
Oliver W.
April 14, 2013
Ernst Umhauer as Claude is fantastic. He juxtaposes the vulnerable child without a mother and the perversely sinister intruder. The scenes from within his classmates house are both chilling and sexy and create real dramatic tension. Ozon blurs the line between reality and fiction with an exceptional narrative and comic bursts of humour. However the ending is unfulfilled, grinding to a halt without tying up loose ends. A fascinating film with some interesting perspectives on marriage, narrative and storytelling.
March 25, 2013
An original film that at times confuses between real and imaginary scenes. Not as great as the reviews suggest.
April 11, 2013
Germain (Fabrice Luchini) is an unhappy high school literature teacher, frustrated by his dull-witted students. He asks a class to write an essay about what they did last weekend, and is mostly appalled by their efforts. But one essay, from a quiet 16-year-old boy named Claude Garcia (Ernst Umhauer) stands out a mile, because of the quality of the writing and the tale's sinister overtones.
The essay explains Claude's obsession with the seemingly perfect family life of his classmate Rapha (Bastien Ughetto). Claude has no such domestic idyll to go home to; he's the son of an unemployed, disabled father and an absent mother. His assignment paper tells how he befriended Rapha and then infiltrated his family by offering to help his classmate with his worst subject, maths. It also describes Claude's stirrings of desire for Rapha's attractive mother Esther (Emmanuelle Seigner). Germain is both fascinated and appalled, and can't resist setting up one-to-one tuition sessions with Claude which centre on further instalments of his story about Rapha's family. But where is the division between truth and fiction? As the film continues, that distinction blurs both for the characters and for the audience.
There's a strong tonal resemblance to the best latter-day Woody Allen films here, an influence apparently acknowledged by a scene in which we see some of the protagonists queuing to see Allen's film 'Match Point'. Germain is a very Allen-esque character, even down to his physical appearance. There are plenty of literary references, and some ribald fun at the expense of modern art. The scenes set in the struggling art gallery run by Germain's wife Jeanne (Kristin Scott Thomas) reward close attention: some of the works on display are hilarious. The whole movie is a highly entertaining comic cautionary tale about the power of stories and the perils of compulsive fascination.
A brilliant, playful, provocative story about stories: why we need narratives, how they can be used and misused, and how dangerous they can be. In The House is also a funny, sexy film about coming of age and breaking rules.
Germain (Fabrice Luchini) is an unhappy high school literature teacher, frustrated by his dull-witted students. He asks a class to write an essay about what they did last weekend, and is mostly appalled by their efforts. But one essay, from a quiet 16-year-old boy named Claude Garcia (Ernst Umhauer) stands out a mile, because of the quality of the writing and the tale's sinister overtones.
The essay explains Claude's obsession with the seemingly perfect family life of his classmate Rapha (Bastien Ughetto). Claude has no such domestic idyll to go home to; he's the son of an unemployed, disabled father and an absent mother. His assignment paper tells how he befriended Rapha and then infiltrated his family by offering to help his classmate with his worst subject, maths. It also describes Claude's stirrings of desire for Rapha's attractive mother Esther (Emmanuelle Seigner). Germain is both fascinated and appalled, and can't resist setting up one-to-one tuition sessions with Claude which centre on further instalments of his story about Rapha's family. But where is the division between truth and fiction? As the film continues, that distinction blurs both for the characters and for the audience.
There's a strong tonal resemblance to the best latter-day Woody Allen films here, an influence apparently acknowledged by a scene in which we see some of the protagonists queuing to see Allen's film 'Match Point'. Germain is a very Allen-esque character, even down to his physical appearance. There are plenty of literary references, and some ribald fun at the expense of modern art. The scenes set in the struggling art gallery run by Germain's wife Jeanne (Kristin Scott Thomas) reward close attention: some of the works on display are hilarious. The whole movie is a highly entertaining comic cautionary tale about the power of stories and the perils of compulsive fascination.
April 8, 2013
The ending is maddening. I really don't quite know what to make of this film. Loved the performances, script and music, though. Just that ending...
April 8, 2013
Insidiously mesmerising, with an intelligent script (that's sometimes too meta for words, but oh well), great acting and sharp direction. Ozon does it again.
March 10, 2013
A provocative visual narrative! We need imagined realities after all, and we definitely need literature!
