In the House (2013)

Best movie ever!

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Mine is a minority opinion I'm sure, but Ozon lost me when he had the teacher steal a copy of the math test to move the plot along. Of course the test is exactly where the lead can find it. The motivation and execution seem highly unlikely.The other thing -- and I know this is a feature, not a bug, for many -- but the blend of fact/fiction (did this really happen?...no, oh, maybe yes) is tiresome and off-putting. Overall, I'm just not buying how this kid inserts himself into the life of another family without anyone saying "enough!" Perhaps French adults are much more casual than Americans about letting adolescents get emotionally entangled with themselves but I doubt it.

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.

In the House (2012)Another curious reality shifting movie in the most subtle and old fashioned of ways—the realism of good fiction. A young writer creates a reality in his essays that is shown as if real on screen. The characters around the writer, and within the fictional story, get intertwined because they are all the same. This game of deception is coy but also witty and warm, and it's a fun, genuine movie.I'm not sure how much logic you should try to apply to things here. I assume they have it worked out perfectly, but watching it lightly the layers of reality get necessarily confusing. In a way this doesn't matter, because you get the general drift. Which is this: a literature teacher in high school has a talented student, Claude, who writes fictional essays about real people. One is another student, Rapha, and we see events in this other student's house because of the writing (and have to guess whether or not those events are fact or fiction). The teacher talks to Claude about the content, wondering if it's fair to lay open Rapha's life, and the student smartly says that it was written for the teacher alone. This brings the teacher into the story in ways he doesn't suspect. It also shows the audience that Claude is outfoxing his teacher and we are going to see a game played as Claude's writings raise reactions in the teacher that affect the fictional plot. Or is it the actual plot? Or both?Exactly.The director, Francois Ozon, is no stranger to this type of game playing. The famous earlier film of his in the U.S. is "Swimming Pool," a remake of an earlier film that has the same tricks played on the audience. It's never quite enough to have this slippery reality be the basis of a movie, and in "Swimming Pool" the events became quite dramatic and psychologically interesting. The ambitions for "In the House" are smaller and less chilling, and in a way less effective, but also less sensationalist and more believable. We have here more of an ensemble piece, a charmer, a play brought to the screen.And it does rise above mere literary cleverness because of the leading man, the teacher, played by Fabrice Luchini, who will be familiar even to American audiences. His wife is the dependable Kristin Scott Thomas (speaking in French). The two of them make a likable intellectual couple (and her own role as an contemporary art dealer plays a small part in the plot). The way they talk about Claude's regular installments is how we get to think about the interweaving of realities. And does it ever get interwoven. Keep track of it is you can. Otherwise, just enjoy the show.

This 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.