There are certainly many meanings underneath the veil of comedy of this movie. Indeed, defining "Dans la maison" a comedy would be reductive, in the same way as thriller sounds out of tune. And it's really difficult to assign a precise category to it. It's a multifaceted movie, showing different levels of interpretation. From the point of view of the teacher, it's a subtle reflection of a middle aged failed man, who has to come to terms with his failure as a writer, and his incapability to inspire enthusiasm in class of bored students. From the point of view of the wives, it's a refined portrait of middle aged unsatisfied women, and their need to find any kind of escape or consolation. But above all, the movie offers a lucid and intelligent gaze on people's voyeuristic curiosity, on how much we are ready to do in order to see what happens behind closed doors and walls, and here the pair teacher-student works perfectly, and develops through the quick-paced writing of a story where the boundaries between reality and fiction become more and more faded, thus making it intriguing and engrossing. On this aspect, the movie is also a reflection on the process itself of artistic creation, which can seduce the reader or the viewer with an incredible power of attraction. A movie which certainly offers a perfect balance between suspense and entertainment, supported by a talented young and mature cast, involving the viewer till the utmost, and moving us to an unpredictable and gripping finale.
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barryrd31 July 2013Francois Ozon is the director of this provocative and unusual film that takes the viewer inside the minds of the characters. It is not a traditional movie with a beginning and an end but a study of a period in the lives of different people. In this movie, a high school student named Claude catches the attention of his teacher named Germain, through an essay that explores the family of another student, named Raffa. Claude has begun to tutor Raffa in mathematics. At first the teacher, as the student's mentor, is hesitant about the breach of privacy with this series of essays but succumbs to the the temptation to become a voyeur. Each essay ends with the notation...To Be Continued. Both student and teacher are seen as outsiders in their own worlds and are strangely attracted to the family. The student gently mocks the family he is observing as dull and middle class. The teacher can understand this estrangement from their world because Claude is from a different world and the teacher himself is something of an outsider in his own world. He encourages the boy to continue his writing because he feels the boy has potential as a writer. As the movie goes along, we see the family of Raffa behaving as many other families pursuing money and status. The boy and his father are both named Raffa so they become the Raffas (plural). The student has a romantic interest in the mother, who seems to be the real reason he wants to explore the home. The desire for sexual encounters is present throughout the movie and seems to come out in a few surprising and light hearted episodes. We also see how Raffa and Claude interact with their teacher and the other students and their own families. The wives of Germain the teacher and Raffa Sr. are also interesting with one a traditional woman handling the domestic lives of the two Raffas. Meanwhile, Germain's wife manages an art gallery for two wealthy sisters, who she is trying to keep happy by making the gallery profitable. The movie is an interesting view of modern angst with the pressures to conform competing with the desire to be independent and on occasion, straying from the accepted standards. All in all, it is a provocative look at the different lives of people who interact and occasionally come into conflict. At the end, we see the message: to be continued.
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A wicked little movie that tries to brake boundaries and more than the fourth wall. It raises up a lot of questions and puts up the mirror to a lot of things, while continuously being funny and wicked at the same time. A hilarious attempt at describing what Art means nowadays or how we try to interpret it. Maybe even how we try to create it.
There is more than one story strand in this movie and they all get at least somewhat explored. And while some of those strands may feel like a cliché, the head on approach make them feel like a fresh take on it. You have to have an open mind about the movie and the way it is shot and told, but if you can do that, you might be able to enjoy this very much. Multiple views can also bring up new and exciting things you might not have seen first time around. Whatever the case, I can recommend this to anyone who wants to be intellectually challenged by watching a movie. -
doomgen_2912 October 2012Often funny, sometimes disturbing and sensual, the movie can be enjoyed at face value, but the heart of the movie lies underneath that appealing veneer, it's about creation and the required necessity to live your life fully to feed it. The budding writer enters the lives of a family, the same way a writer should embrace life itself, with a healthy dose of curiosity and nerve, precisely what his teacher is lacking. Add to that a fascinating and intricate observation of the blurring of lines separating reality from fiction in the feverish midst of artistic creation. Deep stuff, but all wrapped up in a neat bundle, Ozon making sure to leave almost no one on the side of the road, so to speak. So in conclusion it's smart and yet playful, intellectual but never pretentious. Well, in other words, it's a very good movie about potentially boring subjects. Highly recommended in those times of idiocracy!
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MOscarbradley20 February 2013Francois Ozon's delightful, delicious new comedy "In the House" is a wonderfully clever and very funny treatise on the written word delivered in very cinematic terms, on the thin line between fact and fiction, truth and lies and the individual's need for attention.
The central characters are two misplaced males destined, perhaps, to be together and who find each other almost by accident. Germain is a middle-aged (and bitterly cynical) schoolteacher, (a terrific Fabrice Luchini), who one day finds that an essay handed in by handsome young loner student Claude, (Ernst Umhauer, excellent), has all the promise of a blossoming literary talent simply because it deals, in a well-written way, of course, in 'truths', (it describes Claude's infatuation with a fellow student and his family and what might go on 'dans la maison' in which they live), and the essay ends 'to be continued'.
He shows the essay to his wife, (a lovely performance from Kristin Scott Thomas), and, on the one hand, egged on by her and, on the other, despite her misgivings he takes Claude under his wing, so to speak, encouraging him to produce more 'to be continued' episodes on what goes on behind the walls of his friend's family home. As someone says, it can only end badly.
The brilliance of Ozon's conceit is that what we see and what we hear aren't always the same. Sometimes if Germain thinks 'a factual' description of events is not worthy of his talents, Claude will change it in the next scene and as Claude's 'literary career' progresses some of the things he writes has no basis in fact whatsoever so that we, too, are left wondering what's real and what isn't.
It is, of course, a hugely sophisticated comedy where a subplot involving Germain's wife's preoccupation with the art gallery she runs is used to counter-balance Germain's increasing preoccupation with Claude, a preoccupation his wife thinks may even have a sexual basis. Without giving anything away, the film itself ends with the words 'to be continued'; if only ... -
Francois Ozon's latest film is almost like an irresistible novel which you never wanna put down. The different ways in which he develops the characters is quite fascinating to watch.
Germain is a bored French professor who finds most of his students uninteresting or untalented. Then he becomes infatuated with a student's (Claude) essays, which are about a friend's family's life to which Claude has got a way into. Both their infatuations and fascinations make them take interesting actions which lead to almost disastrous consequences.
The final scene makes you wonder whether you too, like Germain, get the same voyeuristic pleasure watching others' intimate lives unfold in front you.
Ozon's movies have some some sort of charm which always keep you hooked till the end. I remember enjoying his last movie, Potiche; but unlike his last movie, this one is quite thought-provoking and gives various dimensions to character-development. -
PipAndSqueak31 March 2013This is a very interesting film taking both the point of view of a sixteen year old school boy and that of a middle aged teacher, with you dear viewer, playing yet another role. Ah ha, so, what we start with is a perhaps knowingly voyeuristic homework task set by the bored literacy tutor. Then we have the youth delivering precisely the kind of inflammatory story that reignites the tutor's interest. It's a dangerous game they both play - almost as if the boy were repeating the tutor's own youth with his post hoc adult knowledge. The innocents in this tale are ignored - or rather, their real stories are overlooked by both boy writer and his tutor whilst they play their silly game. The tutor's wife sees through the whole charade but then even her story is corrupted by inclusion in the boy's story-making. You, the viewer, need to pick carefully through the evidence you are presented. Do you want the boy to succeed? Do you want to encourage the teacher? Shame on you! You've gone down a garden path you should never have entered! Brilliant!
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aequus31414 April 2013For his thirteenth feature film, French New Wave director Francois Ozon has outdone all acclaim given to his 2002 remake of "8 Women" with a mischievous and dysfunctional tale, of what can be perceived as coming-of-age.
A black comedy conflated with so much grandeur from literary greats to post-modern poioumena, you cannot help but wave the white flag and just go along in service of jest and sheer curiosity.
Adapted from a brilliant play written by Juan Mayorgo, this film is a meta-narrative centered on Claude Garcia (Ernst Umhauer) -- a sixteen year old loner who intrudes upon the home life of fellow student Rapha Jr., and writes about it. What begins as a one-off weekend assignment for literature class, escalates with great passion and frequency when Claude's teacher, Germaine (Fabrice Luchini) detects flashes of talent and decides to groom the teenager.
Here, Ozon proposes a three-fold narrative weaving through the surface of three realities -- Germaine's growing obsession with Claude's story imitates the viewers' relationship with Ozon's film (and perhaps soap opera addiction), and Claude as a self-conscious narrator of the events occurring inside Rapha's house.
When the film begins, Claude is unhappy with a lonely life and clearly needs to distract himself with wholesome family warmth. Having witnessed Rapha's close relationship with parents Rapha Sr. and Esther at the school gate, strikes a friendship with the boy when semester begins. Establishing himself as a math tutor and study mate, Claude quickly wins their affection and trust. Thrilled by this opportunity to experience life with a sense of belonging, yet predisposed to primitive urge, Claude's desire swells into furtive yearning for Esther. And naturally, things get complicated.
As Germaine's involvement with Claude's writing departs from passive reader, to that of a story-telling coach superimposing rules of dramatic structure, it occurs to the viewer that he may very well be a shaping hand in the outcome of this voyeuristic experiment.
Of course, the fabrics of fiction and reality overlap but they do not confuse -- the satirical logic unfolds in ways that are thought- provoking, humorous and downright captivating.
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I think of Francois Ozon as a French version of Michael Winterbottom: a director interested in making a very diverse catalogue of films, more successful in some genres than in others, but no two of his movies are ever quite the same. 'In the House' tells the story of a teacher who encourages a pupil with a knack for storytelling, choosing to ignore (or even to encourage) the way the pupil is experimenting with life in order to find material for his tale. The twists revolve around the extent to which the teacher himself may also be present within the story. The conceit isn't a bad one, but the film has to work implausibly hard to bring it off: while the teacher and his wife are believable, I didn't find the pupil to be. Always he is writing of "normal life", as if to contrast with his own; but the film tells us nothing of what his own life actually is (except as a game-player extraordinaire). The ending is skillfully executed but overall, it's a little heavy-handed.
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lasttimeisaw24 April 2013Haven'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 unrecognizable 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, swaggeringly 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, colorful, vivid but never satisfied. -
BTaylor19906 April 2013In The House (Francois Ozon, 2012) 4/5 'Home is where the heart is', 'There's no place like home', these and countless other sayings have reverberated throughout cinema's history. Let's face it; there is no film that doesn't feature, in one form or another, a domestic space where all of our characters reside. Francois Ozon's new feature looks to uncover what happens when we peep through the windows of the 'perfect' family unit and deconstruct its very construction. In many ways Ozon is merely continuing his signature style of blending a familial setting with a criminal or dramatic undertone. Films that echo this sentiment include Swimming Pool (2003), Ricky (2009), The Refuge (2009) and Potiche (2010).
The narrative follows a sixteen year old boy Claude Garcia (Ernst Umhauer) who ingratiates himself into the Artole family by befriending and tutoring the only son Rapha (Denis Ménochet). He begins to write stories about their activities and gives these to his teacher, Germaine (Fabrice Luchini), who, along with his wife Jeanne (Kristin Scott Thomas), becomes embroiled in a game of fiction and the very nature of storytelling. The film begins with a very naturalistic style with the focus on mise en scene and performance; however, without quite knowing it, it slowly develops into a self-reflexive take on contemporary families and suburbia. As such, Ozon carefully weaves a story that takes off the veneer of clinical domesticity.
You might say 'hang on a minute; this has been done to death, right?' Well, you'd be right, although, I can assure you; this isn't an episode of Desperate Housewives that spirals into soapy drama. In fact, it verges on both the hysterical claustrophobia of Douglas Sirk and the keen voyeurism of Alfred Hitchcock. Indeed, what we get is a very knowing film that understands what has come before it, but at the same time is trying to create something new and intriguing. The way it does this is that most of the film is constructed around written assignments, where Claude communicates his findings of living with the Artole's for a year. However, as he tries to break the classical convention of the family, which includes a brief fling with troubled mother Esther, his actions, have far greater consequences for Germaine.
The whole style of the film is fresh as Jérôme Alméras's cinematography and Pascaline Chavanne's art direction effortlessly guides us through the trials and tribulations of the characters. Note the fast forward shots at the beginning and the colourful imagery of the finale and you will see that the film becomes bookended. Much like, the books that Germaine wants his students to read for assignments, In The House not only tries to uncover the secrets of the family but also becomes a self-reflexive take on the novel. Indeed, all of the twists and turns of a paperback is conveyed visually through Ozon's willingness to dive straight into the comical, sensual and uneasy character relationships.
The performances from the entire cast are great, with particular standouts being Luchini, Scott Thomas and Umhauer. However, it is Emmanuelle Seigner, who gives the best impression of a contemporary Betty Draper, which steals the show! In fact, in many ways, she embodies the very strict nature of the familial unit and its unwillingness to change. Her character is quietly unravelling; however, with the stabling force of another pregnancy she finds her place yet again as the stereotypical matriarch. As such, in the end, although prodded and poked, the perfect household remains intact, however, as Claude prepares another suburban adventure, there is a sense of the unknown of what he might find out underneath the bricks and mortar of what makes a house a home. -
Reno-Rangan8 August 2013The story is based on the play 'The boy in the last row' and a well crafted French drama centers between teacher and student relationship.
The story begins like a serious drama, when character developments reach at a certain stage the peculiar way of story telling starts to dig deeper into the existing characters which puts us to curiosity about the next scenes. This was kinda unusual theme like 'Stranger than fiction' and 'Ruby sparks'. The story has the power to control over the audience, which sometime drags between reality and fiction as its layers and sub-plots. You can't just judge the story especially the end but you have to experience yourself by watching it till end. The twist was really a nice one, it made the movie completely. I liked the scene at the end when they both sit on a chair and looks at a small flats from outside and say their own version stories.
The movie was suspenseful but comedy, especially when the character Germain pop-out as a narrator or guidance during the story flow of a student and his affair. The actual story of the movie was a teacher finds out one of his student's caliber in writing. So he offers him guidance to improve his talent which later the student submits a series of essay papers. When the story written by his student brings complication to around them there is no other way to solve it. Before to giving up on it is reached at its highest point to blow on everything out.
As the story was loosely based on the house, the title was perfect. The unique way of story telling and the interesting characters made the movie rich and spicy. One of a best French drama of the year, in fact very clever, must appreciate the writer Juan Mayorga and the director Ozon. Definitely not to be missed suppose you are a movie fanatic. -
kino_avantgarde27 October 2022Based on Juan Mayorga's play "The Boy in the Back Row", the film is reminiscent of Woody Allen's style with its layered plot.
It's the story of two people and their up and downs in their teacher and student identities, both trying escape to their ideal, in pursuit of reaching their ultima thule. The fiction they need in this escape sometimes turns into reality, but after a point it gets out of control and becomes dangerous. There is a utopia that can never be reached, the existing ones are replaced as it is realized piece by piece, end it gets worse than the beginning. And the movie emphasises this fragility to the audiance. And the ending is not really satisfying, even very weak. Ozon's response: "I think the ending of the movie is clear. I did it on purpose; I wanted the audience to be able to imagine their own movie while watching it. They can imagine a darker ending if they want to." His references to art and literature are very good. I think the biggest hit of the movie is Ernst Umhauer, the lead actor.
Lastly, speaking of Woody Allen; 'Match Point' is the movie that the characters went to see in the cinema, another nice reference. -
Buscatcher17 April 2013I was intrigued, entranced and beguiled by this movie from the start, but 45 minutes in, it pretty much gives up. Claude is a teenage student who excels in maths, because of this he manages to inveigle himself into the home of Rapha a fellow student who is struggling with the subject. On the pretence of assisting with his homework he gets 'In the house' which he has been watching from a nearby park for a while. Claude's story of his time with Rapha and his parents is told to us via the essays he writes for his language teacher Germain. Germain laps up these tales and shares them clandestinely with his wife Jeanne (Kristin Scott Thomas, adding to her list of French movie roles). So much so he actively encourages the boy to carry on the deceit.
The story from in the house involves, possible infidelity, male bonding, voyeurism, the vilification of the middle classes, ill health, rejection and acceptance. And yet with all this going on I felt we were not being taken on a cinematic journey, it was more akin to slowly walking on a filmic hamster wheel.
After the great set up, where the characters are skilfully introduced, the performances are solid as is the direction and dialogue. But the writer and director don't know what to do after the set up and the film meanders somewhat tediously to a clumsy and over long conclusion. A shame really. I'm not sure The Buscatcher can recommend a journey to the flicks for this one. -
searchanddestroy-113 October 2012I don't know François Ozon's films very well. I only know that he makes rather strange, weird and unusual movies. This one is not an exception. This story of a high school french teacher who has to deal with one of his students is awesome, very intriguing. The teen in question appears to be very smart, very intelligent. And far more than that.
This film is actually a sort of thriller which looks like Hitchcock's features. You may think of REAR WINDOW, for instance. The characters are well described. And when you know that François Ozon - the director - is homosexual, you understand the exquisite taste he probably had to make such a picture, with such a sensibility.
Unfortunately, I did not get everything in this little masterpiece. I should watch it twice. And it is not the kind of films I am used to see.
Yes, a very brilliant and intelligent movie. A must see. -
DICK STEEL5 April 2013Maybe it's just me, but there's something sexy with stories about writers and their writings making it onto film, with recent releases such as Ruby Sparks powering its way into my top film of last year. In The House looks set to do the same too, directed by Francois Ozon, well known for his feature film Swimming Pool (which was also centered around a writer played by Charlotte Rampling), and based on a play written by Juan Mayorga called The Boy in the Last Row. Words cannot deny the genius of both the screenplay and the film's direction in crafting a piece that draws and sucks you into its narrative, becoming what's akin to a page turner that captivates all the way to the finale.
Fabrice Luchini plays Mr Germain, a literature teacher in a school whose lofty ambitions of imparting his vast knowledge go up in smoke with the most uninspired students, until he latches upon the raw talent of Claude Garcia (Ernst Umhauer), which isn't hard since his homework submission on what happened over the weekend was two pages compared to his peers' two liners, and contained all ingredients necessary that would have caught any reader's attention with its yet to be verified autobiographical nature, a hook, and a cliffhanger. Soon Germain slowly discovers that he wanted more, and takes it upon himself to bring Claude under his personal tutelage so that Claude's creative output and juices can get to be nurtured by him.
Kristin Scott Thomas plays Germain's wife Jeanne, who partakes in the same, reading Claude's submissions as she struggles to get her professional art gallery in order, lest it be shut down for the lack of a good exhibition. And the interplay between husband and wife over Clude is something the film excelled in, presenting two sides to an argument whether Claude is imagining it, or telling it as it is experienced, about his near obsession with wanting and eventually getting into the house of his friend Rapha Artole (Bastien Ughetto), which soon evolves into becoming an integral part of the household with his presence on the pretext of tutoring his friend, but essentially being an outlet to get close to Rapha's mom Esther (Emmanuelle Seigner), an infatuation that will take on epic proportions.
Interesting enough, this film works if you'd participate in it just as how both Germain and Jeanne allowed their morbid curiosity to get the better of them. We become those characters personified, and one can imagine just how powerful this is in a staged production. But its effect and impact are not diminished on film, as you'll find yourself demanding more, with Ozon often pulling the plug leaving you wanting more, and lapping everything up with Claude submitting another chapter of sorts being played out on screen. We connect the dots, and partake in the lives of the Artole family, learning about their hopes, dreams, secrets, celebrate in their success, and sympathize when they hit a brick wall. And there are many relationship types in the film, from that of lustful ones, to father-son relations, mentor-mentee, best of friends, and even the recurring GLBT ones that Ozon's films tend to feature.
In truth, watching this film becomes that guilty pleasure that is voyeur central, filled with comedy, drama, and wonderful acting that bring the characters to life, yet having the narrative mileage to pique and sustain one's interest from beginning to end by appealing to our primal curious nature, and really milking and manipulating it, with us allowing it to, and growing increasingly effective as we clamour for Claude to seek out even more intimate moments. It's a scary reflection of ourselves, yet an engagement by a film par none. A definite recommend! -
GLanoue19 October 2012This movie works for several reasons, most of all because of the script. Germain (Fabrice Luchini) is a French lit teacher married to Jeanne (Kristen Scott Thomas), who runs a modern art gallery without much success; she insists on showing conceptual art that no one understands, or in fact that everyone understands too well as pretentious claptrap. Germain, disgusted by his students' plebeian efforts at writing, at first comes across as a kind of aesthetic purist who sees literature as occupying some sort of moral high ground; we are gently pushed to this conclusion because we can see he is uncomfortable about telling his wife the truth about her gallery, that merely slapping a picture of Hitler on a blow-up doll is not a real indictment of the tyranny of gender (or the gendering of tyranny – it works either way, and you just know that somewhere some art student has come up with the same idea and someone like Camille Paglia has praised it). Amidst the dross, he is surprised to find a short essay by one of his students (Claude) that captivates him. In crisp simple prose, Claude describes his fascination with the house and family of schoolmate Rapha and how, as a math tutor to help his nice but thick petty-bourgeois friend (tellingly, he cannot understand "imaginary numbers"), he manages to infiltrate Rapha's house and capture the "scent of a middle class woman", Rapha's mother convincingly played by Emmanuelle Seigner. He ends his vivid account with a "to be continued" (à suivre, in French, whose terseness is a bit more urgent than the English version). Germain starts talking to Claude, who until then was an otherwise unremarkable student. He begins tutoring him and encouraging him to write, although he maintains a superior attitude about the relationship (more or less: "it would appear you have some small talent"). Here is where it gets interesting. Germain becomes so entranced by Claude's treatment of his friend's ultra-conventional and boring middle class family that he begins to suggest which details to emphasise in his accounts. In other words, he starts suggesting plot lines to heighten the narrative drama, which Claude more or less puts into play by manipulating the family; eventually, the division between fantasy and reality is broached. It seems at first the film will insist on being yet another highbrow indictment of middle class banality – young Claude is smarter and better educated than anyone in the Rapha household; even Mommy Rapha's obsession with House Beautiful style decoration is belied by her very banal results. But there's a twist: amidst the semi-snide comments it becomes increasingly obvious that Claude and Germain have other agendas than merely exploring the upper reaches of high art by diving into the world of the petty bourgeois Raphas. Manipulating the Raphas becomes a power game, in which Germain can flatter his ego that was flattened by his lack of literary talent (we discover he is a failed novelist), and Claude can finally feel something because he comes from a broken home with a paralysed (!) father and a mother who abandoned the family when Claude was young (we get hints later that it was to seek love). At this point, nearly everyone is tainted and morally ambiguous: Germain's wife's gallery fails because she insists on showing highbrow conceptual art that no one buys despite warnings from the building owners (a deus ex machina represented by "twins"), but she leaves him when she realises Germain is no more than an emotional voyeur who can only live through Claude's manipulation of the innocent Raphas. Germain gets fired because he stole a math test so Claude could get brownie points with the thick Rapha junior; Claude's alleged talent is revealed to be no more than a fascination with the seedy; at the end, he seems as homeless as the by-now fired Germain. When the Raphas get their act together to take advantage of a deal in China, they unite: Mommy rejects Claude's advances and realises he's just a boy with a boy's childish destructive streak; Daddy grows a pair, stops whining about his richer and more successful partner, and launches his own business; even Rapha junior, thick headed and apparently innocent and naïve, finally realises that Claude is really more of an emotional parasite than a friend and beats him up for making a pass at his mother. In the end, the boring and conventional Raphas are vindicated, and the intellectual and artistic highbrows (Claude, Germain and his wife) are ruined. This is a script-driven film; everything is narrated, and the actors are illustrating scenes that Claude has written at the urging of his mentor and fellow emotional cripple Germain. As such, it could have been slow but the pace is quite racy; director François Ozon not only uses the "to be followed" to keep up interest, he gives a little wink to the audience when he overuses it with several hypothetical scenes are played out to get a resolution. All in all, a highly successful film adaptation of a novel, with fine actors, pacing and dialogue.
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scottyxl14 May 2015This was a film without much scenery or need for a score. It only needed a setting for the plot to unfold. I liked how this film could take place anywhere in the world and yet the story is not common.
I like how the plot made sure you couldn't predict what was going to happen and how it wasn't obvious from the start. The interaction of the characters was done really well between the 'real' and 'fantasy' worlds. You never know if it is something that happened or if Claude makes it up.
Even though the movie was almost 2 hours long it didn't feel that way and it was quite enjoyable to watch. -
BeneCumb1 November 2013This awkward and witty film is based on the play The Boy in the Last Row by Juan Mayorga, i.e. the script emanates from a solid creation. The run of the events is smooth, but sometimes it is tricky to follow the line between truth and fantasy, including the ending scenes, and some deeds remained mystery to me. In spite of serious topics touched (e.g. alienation, growing pains, loneliness, generation gaps), there are several funny scenes, particularly gallery-related ones, and strong performances provide additional value to the film (Fabrice Luchini as Germain Germain, Ernst Umhauer (skilfully depicting an 16-year-old while being 22) as Claude Garcia, Kristin Scott Thomas (in fluent French) as Jeanne Germain, Emmanuelle Seigner as Esther Artole - in particular). Hopefully, no remake will be made, as the sound of French and supposition of Frenchmen are just appropriate for such a film.
Recommended to all those fond of films with twists and not afraid of subtitles. -
Extremely well directed, with fine performances all round and marvellous dialogue, at once inspiring and amusing but there is a problem. I should probably stay quiet and not mention this. This film has been acclaimed all over and nobody seems to have mentioned it. I feel that I must at least allude to the proverbial 'elephant in the room'. However well this is dressed and it is indeed, well dressed with some super lines and if it veers a little too close to becoming a Woody Allen parody, it is still well done. But, it surely has to be faced that, interesting and insightful a view of marriage that it is, it is a gay view. I just don't buy the notion that the traditional father son relationship has gay connotations, they just might play sports together but surely not shower together like this. Neither do I buy the central gay conceit, indulged in previously in Pasolini's, Theorem, that a good looking boy can sleep his way through a traditional household. So just a little too much fantasy here methinks.
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dromasca3 March 2013'Dans la maison' ('In the House') directed by Francois Ozon is one of the the most surprising films I have seen lately. Adaptation of a play, the screen is so smart that my major question is how is it that Woody Allen did not write it first? or maybe he wrote it under disguise?
It is really such an Allen-esque story, which mingles real life and imagination, the writer as a creator of life, and life as a creator of literature. It even has a thread about relations of adults and underage and even if it loses a little bit of steam by the end, talking so much about a good ending for the story that it forgets to create a real good and non-conventional one, it is still one of the smartest and most original scripts I have watched lately brought in screen. The hero is a professor of literature Germain (Fabrice Luchini), smart enough to abhor the re-introduction of uniforms in high school, whose literary ambitions were not fulfilled and who finds a goal (and a change in the routine) in pygmalionizing one of his pupils Claude (Ernst Umhauer) in the ways of literature. As it happens Clude's subjects are his friend and colleague Rapha (Bastien Ughetto), his house which is the middle class dream for a poor kid from the peripheries, and his family or especially his mother (Emmanuelle Seigner) who becomes the object of his teenage dreams and guilty desires. As the story develops, the house becomes the stage of the action, reality inspires fiction at first just to make room for literary fiction becoming reality, the intervention of the teacher becomes much more than correction of grammar or style, it starts to be correction of destinies. All in a fluent and well paced style for most of the time.
I liked the acting of Fabrice Luchini, well supported by other fine actors as the two charming Kristin Scott Thomas (as his wife, co-reader of Rapha's essays and supporting character playing eventually a surprising role in the story) and Emmanuelle Seigner. All of them act solidly, their problems are credible, and we can feel the atmosphere and the torments of the middle class in the French province. The two teenager roles are played with the natural touch and expected freshness by Ernst Umhauer and Bastien Ughetto (the latest is very promising, may he have luck in getting distributed in roles that fit his talent and his face!). Overall it's a smart and funny movie, worth seeing for many reasons. -
writers_reign29 March 2013So, Francois Ozon has finally come up with another watchable film. Not perhaps so out-and-out entertaining as 8 Women, nor does it have the delectable Valeria Bruni Tedeschi to take your mind of the pretentiousness and preciousness that is Ozon's stock-in-trade but it does have a plot that a Spanish playwright may or may not have 'borrowed' from Muriel Spark and Fabrice Luchini, arguably more a man of the theatre than cinema but who invariably turns in something worth watching albeit quirky and on top of this it has Kristin Scott Thomas in a role she could phone in had she less integrity. The basic premise is just about enough off-the-wall to draw you in although the inexorability content is just a tad too Greek not to smack of pretentiousness. Certainly worth a look.
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Wes_Dean11 March 2018In the house is a movie, like a lot of Ozon's work, that unveils secret and repressed desires. Frustrations are also a key element to the movie and the plot is based on a need coming from every character, that makes the story go forward, at almost any price.
This story is narrated through the lens of Claude, a student whose french teacher sees an incredibly huge potential as a writer in him. But what's the most interesting in this story, is how through his essays, Claude manipulates his teacher and manipulates the reality of the story. This movie has a complex narrative that is happening in different places but that are all connected through a simple sheet of paper, showing the power of words. But what's the most interesting and disturbing at times, is Claude's interpretation of what is Realism for him. It is not a coincidence if the major literary figure in this movie is Gustave Flaubert, one of the greatest representatives of 19th century realism. Because Claude says it, he only writes what he sees and what happens around him. And we clearly see that when he starts imagining what he is writing, it doesn't work. That obsessive need is what makes Claude all along the movie, becoming what could name a manipulative sociopath, and his teacher a complice of his acts because he only sees himself in his student, and doesn't want him to reproduce the same mistakes that he already made.
This is a great stimulating movie, where (at the beginning especially) Kristin Scott Thomas and Fabrice Luchini are kind of off, but then the intrigue catches you and I challenge anyone who watches this movie, not to be caught by this wonderfully unsettling and thrilling movie. -
First, let me be clear my French is bad. I speak little and understand even little. Still I don't feel there is a language barrier for me to confuse this movie . The movie as a whole was different and I liked it. The first half was rather clear but the latter part got too confusing for reality or not like the Fellini's. Still the ambiguity was cherished be me. Director Ozon was really good and I'd like to see more of his works.
The things I find hard to believe is the story given by Claude. 'Was it too good?' - I don't think so. The comedy is extremely dark as suggested by the maker. I disliked it. There are too many "may be's" in the movie so I was uncomfortable. The movie is definably good but not for all viewers. -
RickyFlambo14 May 2013This film is not for most people. There is no narrative plot, only suggestions of what might be included in a short story. Maybe this character could be like this, maybe this could happen, maybe that character needs more substance, what if she did this, etc. There is no dynamic conflict, no drama, no emotional investment by the viewers because anything could happen and nothing is real, it's only suggestions about where a story might go. Unfortunately, that could be an interesting idea if the suggestions were not banal, but they are banal. So, for me, and I believe for most viewers, this is not worth the time.