Housekeeping belongs in the pantheon of the cerebral filmmaking that featured prominently in the early aughts (like Mike Figgis' Timecode and Shane Carruth's Primer) that really made cinema engaging in the post-American-Eccentric wake. Its low-fi, observational feel is intense and follows a single character through most of the movie. It is a film that begets introspection and is wonderfully paranoid in the tradition of early 1970s neorealist revival and cinéma vérité. Worth checking out for the performance and direction alone.
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broshambrosham12 November 2021
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InDyingArms12 April 2015"Afterdark" in all honesty never exactly produced for what they supposedly stood for - that being "shocking" or .. even really good films. This film has a large example of just that, as "Housekeeping" showed itself as a boring, and extremely long film that seemed to have no end.
This film had many flaws, and it's hype is unbelievable. The story of this film; A girl, now having to help with her brother, as well as herself, in need of money gets a job for this crazy woman as a housekeeper. Things progress to get worse, secrets are uncovered, etc. It's been done before, and this movie seems to just make that clichéd statement standout further than it was already presented as. It seemed extremely dull, offering not much at all to call unique, or possibly new. Instead, we are given a clichéd story that .. is just that. No other real words to exactly describe it. Just another cliché, yet slightly more dull. The visual effects, or cinematography just made that even worse, topping it off with ugly, depressing-like color filters that may seemed nicer, but in reality, to us audience looked simply terrible, too bright, or too dark. Toward the characters, moving on, once again, there's nothing special about them. Through out this entire movie, the main character has literally nothing to say, and remains a complete mute through out this entire film, of which got a bit annoying, and even confusing at times. The film tried adding some other characters, including a brother of which is in deep trouble financially; the said character came off extremely annoying, through out the movie playing constant voice messages of him speaking loudly into the phone. The acting of which we actually saw, that being the main actress, even without speech wasn't great at all. Points of which she was supposedly scared, or terrified by certain sights came off as amateur, and even ridiculous at points. Once again, knowing she barely said anything it got extremely annoying seeing the movie constantly pan to her sleeping, waking up, going to the house, over, and over again. - Moving on with the film, the story completely drains all patients, and hope of it getting better as it takes an even bigger clichéd turn with the story.. "My family died in a freak accident, I have nightmares" We've seen this before. On top of that the movie bugs the living crap out of us with constant, matter of second clips of the accident with an EVEN LOUDER volume than usual, instead of adding tension, or even scaring us. It just falls off as annoying, and buggy as crap!
To end it here. This was utter crap. I don't judge films on their budget, as some low budget films have been quite good. But when the film adds annoying clichés, horrid qualities, showing little, to no effort whatsoever, horrible ideas that may of seemed good, and just utter, boring, and terrible pacing.. it's atrocious. This film was just hard to continue, it fell off flat, and boring.. and simply dropped any, to all interest straight down the drain. I would not recommend this at all, don't even bother with this, you'll throw yourself into a suicide of interest. -
csizzle-1472619 April 2020This movie is actual garbage in my opinion half the movie is just talking over non moving pictures and I would much rather watch paint dry than be subjected to this terrible movie, this movie is actually my least favorite movie of all time
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KayDarko31271319 April 2020This is the worst movie I have ever seen. This was not even a movie. This is worse than Sci Fi High and Return of the Boogeyman. No plot. No entertainment whatsoever. People are watching this movie on repeat in hell.
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nogodnomasters21 November 2018Lucy Castillo (Adriana Solis) can't seem to be a medical internship in Orange County. She needs cash to help her brother because he apparently has borrowed from the wrong guys or something. She takes on a high paying three week job as a housekeeper for a realtor who communicates to her by notes. There are also flashbacks to a fire and some bad whistling of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" which is explained about an hour into the film.
The film is done differently and by differently I don't mean better or entertaining. The only person who appears in the film is Lucy. The plot points are given to us via an answering machine, notes, and in a rare moment, a person speaking. It grew rather boring as Lucy performed inane tasks day in and day out. The situation with her brother, I guess escalated, but did so through the answering machine so it was "they need the money sooner..."
The film centers on Lucy apparently descending through despair and who really cares about despair.
Guide: No sex or nudity. Some PG-13 language. -
grayey115 February 2024This movie is pure trash. No dialogue except what you hear through an answering machine, which is meant to narrate the story since they think not having their characters speak is a novel idea.
I paid pretty close attention to this and still am not sure what it was about. There was a fire and the main girl had rescued her brother while possibly not rescuing someone else. She needs now to clean a house for 3 weeks for some unknown person (possibly a victim's family member in the fire?) in order to keep her brother out of trouble. He appears to be being held captive and tortured. I guess.
She has dreams but then is not dreaming? I don't get. Near the end, she is suddenly tied up in a car but I have no clue how this happened or who did this to her. But it doesn't matter because 2 minutes later she wakes up tied up on her couch and slips right out of the knots. It ends by stating revenge is a bi***. No, this move is a bi*** and I am really hoping potential viewers are reading this in advance and will spare 90 minutes of their life. If there was law enforcement in the movie world, this one would be guilty of so many crimes. It is definitely criminal. BTW, I did not click the spoiler icon because I do not know if I spoiled anything or if there was even anything to spoil. -
jmhyrczyk5 April 2016Housekeeping pushes the boundaries of cinema. While telling a relatively simple story involving a medical student who was to bail out her brother, the director uses a complex visual and auditory language to put the viewer into the main character's POV.
The style is reminiscent of the work of the great Tony Scott and Danny Boyle. Housekeeping is extremely impressive considering it's the director's first feature, clearly made with limited means. It's thrilling to see a young director so invested in experimenting with the aesthetics of cinema. We can only hope that Jennifer Harrington goes on to make bigger movies and we can look back on Housekeeping as her version of Christopher Nolan's Following or Gus Van Sant's Mala Noche, which are both no-budget first features.
At the same time, Housekeeping is fascinating examination of themes of class and race in Los Angeles. But, it's never heavy-handed and in fact, is quite scary at times! I cannot recommend this movie enough! It's a must-see.