Life as a House

Life as a House

A respectable tearjerker, Life as a House is a welcome throwback to angst-ridden family dramas like Ordinary People and Terms of Endearment. It falls short of those modern classics, but you'll probably still need Kleenex if you appreciate Kevin Kline's underrated dramatic skills. As the title suggests, Kline's project is a broad metaphor for repairing damaged lives from the foundation up. Playing an architect with terminal cancer, he gives an Oscar®-caliber performance, reaching out to his estranged, nihilistic son (future Star Wars star Hayden Christensen) and ex-wife (Kristin Scott-Thomas) as he wrecks and rebuilds the Malibu cliff-top home that contained his most painful memories. Director Irwin Winkler's flair with actors helps to minimize lapses in a script (by As Good As It Gets scribe Mark Andrus) that occasionally borders on maudlin. Overall, this is a fine reminder that Hollywood hasn't lost its soul to action and special effects. --Jeff Shannon

Genre: Drama
Production: New Line Cinema
  Nominated for 1 Golden Globe. Another 2 wins & 8 nominations.
 
IMDB:
7.5
Metacritic:
45
Rotten Tomatoes:
47%
R
Year:
2001
125
$15,412,701
Website
5,162 Views

Sam:
I took some of your Vicatin.

George:
I know. Why?

Sam:
I like how it feels to not feel.

George:
I know the feeling.

Sam:
How do you become something that you're not?

George:
What would you like to be?

Sam:
What I'm not.

George:
What are you now?

Sam:
I'm nothing.

George:
That's not true.

Sam:
You see, that's the thing though is that I am what I say I am.

George:
I gave up on you.

Sam:
No, no if you'd given up on me I'd be in Tahoe right now.

George:
And what would you be doing there right now?

Sam:
Getting high, I guess.

George:
If I asked you to stop, would you?

Sam:
I haven't used anything in two days. I'm trying.

George:
I'm proud of you.

Sam:
Yeah, well don't be. And hide that new Daily...whatever that new drug is you have. I like it.

George:
I held I gun up to my father’s head once. You ever think like that? He had just been yelling at my mom over, nothing, undercooked meat. I went to my room, I held the barrel right up to his ear, and then I chickened out again. Of course it was a bb gun but it still would’ve hurt like hell.

Sam:
(takes of headphones) Are you talking?

George:
I was just thinking about my mom. She wouldn't leave my dad. I remember one time she made dinner for us wearing sunglasses. Remind you it was dark outside, and in. And nobody said a thing about it.

Sam:
Why wouldn't she just leave?

George:
I think she was terrified to live with him but maybe even more terrified of life without him.

Sam:
I would've killed him.

George:
It would have been so much better if you had. Maybe then he wouldn’t have driven drunk, killed my mom in a car crash, other women in the car. Hurt a little girl in the back seat too. You would’ve liked your grandma, she was pretty cool. I still think about that little girl, they couldn’t find her father and her mother was dead.

Sam:
Do you ever wish you'd have done it?

George:
What, killed my dad?

Sam:
(Nods)

George:
I loved him too much.

Sam:
That's weird.

George:
Yeah, I guess it is.


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