In The House was wonderful for the first 20-30 minutes or so. By the end of the film I was pissed off and grumpy.

The film’s story idea has so much potential: A semi-jaded literature teacher (and his semi-neurotic wife) become obsessed with a provocative real-life drama unfolding in one of his student’s free writing assignments. The dialog and the narration of the various writings are initially exciting and funny, and the casting and performances are great.  But after a promising start, the film takes a definite turn in a very safe and unoriginal direction. The story becomes needlessly dark and twisted, and much less interesting, and the focus switches from an unfolding human drama to a device entirely designed to make the viewer wonder how much of what they are seeing is really happening – once the viewer decides just how much of what they saw was real (and what they choose winds up being surprisingly unimportant,) there is little to nothing to be gained from the movie. In the end, it’s just an empty, manipulative little game, sunk by its own cleverness, which I found infuriating.

My wife and I went to see In The House largely because we are big Kristen Scott Thomas fans, and to see Kristen Scott Thomas these days you pretty much have to watch French films. (Can you blame her? What is there for someone like her to do in Hollywood?) Also in the film is the wonderful Fabrice Luchini, who any Eric Rohmer fanatic will instantly and happily recognize as “Octave,” one of my favorite Rohmer characters of all time (from Les Nuits de la Pleine Lune.) These two have a wonderful chemistry in the beginning of the film, before the main narrative device starts warping their relationship in ways that make no sense. I just wish they had found a better film in which to work together.

I can’t stress enough the disappointment and disillusionment I felt from watching this movie. I know In The House is getting a lot of critical acclaim, but I think these critics are just dazzled by superficial technique. I found it all very pedestrian in the end – I wish these filmmakers had had the guts (and the talent) to take this great idea and do something really great with it.