Fairaher
The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
PiraBit
if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.
Edwin
The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.
MartinHafer
"In the House" is an odd and creepy film. It's also very difficult to predict and understand. I noticed that a lot of the reviewers here liked it--just was just left a bit cold.When the film begins, Germain (Fabrice Luchini) is an older school teacher who seems a bit burned out by his job. However, one of his students has piqued his interest. Claude (Ernst Umhauer) is writing essays about his weekends that are FAR different from the boring and brief ones from his classmates. And, he also writes about the family of one of his classmates--almost like a detached observer watching them and writing about them. It becomes highly inappropriate after a while, as it's clearly violating the family's privacy. But it gets worse--Claude tells his teacher that he doesn't have time to write more--so the teacher steals a math test from another teacher and the boy agrees to keep writing! Huh?! It goes on and on from there and much of it is real and much isn't--and it's often very, very difficult to tell which you are seeing. Some of it is even creepier because it shows a teenage boy making out with a 35-40 year-old lady--and I sure felt uncomfortable with their passionate kissing.So is this worth seeing? For me, not really. I love some of the acting and actors but the film goes in many directions but never seems to zero in on any one thing. It's creepy but not completely. It seems at first like a dark comedy...but isn't. What is it? I dunno.
bandw
Some questions touched on here are reminiscent of Ozon's "Swimming Pool": How do writers get their inspiration? In a story what is to be perceived as true and what is clearly fiction? Why do we even get involved in fictional stories?In this story Fabrice Luchini plays Germain Germain, a secondary school literature teacher who is fed up with the lack of talent in his classes. He assigns one of his classes the task of writing an essay on what they did for the weekend. At home with his wife Jeanne (Kristin Scott Thomas) he reads to her paper after paper having comments on the order of "Watched TV." But then he runs onto a paper by Claude Garcia (Ernst Umhauer) that shows some real talent. Germain is so excited by this that he personally encourages Claude by meeting with him, giving him great works of literature to read, and critiquing his continuing development. Claude's inspiration for his sequence of essays initially comes from his having sat on a park bench having a view of the house of a fellow classmate. From the outside this household looks like it could be that of an ideal family and, coming from a relatively poor family where he tends to an ailing father, it is natural that Claude would wonder what such a family looks like from the inside. So he insinuates himself into the family and produces his successive written installments describing his experiences. Germain becomes wrapped up in Claude's stories almost to the point of obsession.There are emotional undercurrents played out between Claude, Germain, and Jeanne. Claude could be the son that Germain never had and Germain sees in Claude the novelist that he was unable to become. Germain's focus on Claude has repercussions on his marriage, his profession, and his life's trajectory.One thing I found intriguing about this story is that I never knew to what extent Claude was making things up, or even whether it was all made up. The movie presents his stories as if they were real, except that in some scenes Germain pops into the picture as a ghost presence offering a running commentary of how the story could be improved. At one point in his story Claude had his friend being gay and committing suicide and Germain was so into Claude's story that reading about the suicide set him into a panicked pursuit of its truth. At that point I felt that Ozon had made a bit of a fool of me by mocking my being involved in his story to where I had been tense when I thought Claude was going to be discovered in his surreptitious entry into his classmate's house, or when I wanted to know what was true and what was false in a story that was fiction.This movie aggravated a conflict I have had with fiction and that is why it can so intensely involve me while being made up. Some movies or books try to resolve this conflict by stating up front, "based on a true story." But that true story can be a single event that is elaborated. The last scene in this movie illustrates that point by having Germain and Claude sitting outside an apartment building looking into the rooms and speculating on the stories behind what they see. I can imagine that "In the House" could be based simply on Ozon's sitting on a park bench and observing some activity in a house across the way and then just filling in details from his imagination.The cast is well chosen. Luchini has a knack of playing an average man capable of being engaged by life's surprises. In fact I came to this movie because I liked Luchini so well in "Intimate Strangers." Kristin Scott Thomas is believable as the manager of an avant-garde art gallery. Many satiric jabs are taken at the world of contemporary art--who will ever forget the swastika composed from penises? Ernst Umhauer is effective as Claude, he has just the right combination of shyness, charm, and mischievousness.The popularity of movies, books, and TV attests to our passion for stories. Surely paleolithic peoples sat around telling stories. The passion for stories must be deeply seated in the human psyche. This movie left me questioning just how much reality there is in fiction. It is hard for me to believe that a work of fiction is not informed to some extent by the life experiences of the author. And how much fiction is in what we think of as reality? What we offer to others is a story and we get theirs in return--what to believe? Even purportedly objective documentaries come at you with a point of view. Much of life is a continual exercise in discriminating between shades of gray.
George Wright
Francois 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.
kosmasp
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.
