Name: Retro Film Review: The House of Yes (1997)
Item: The House of Yes
Rating: 30
Author: @drax

(source:tmdb.org)

"Normal people are crazy, rich people are eccentric" is a proverb that could applied to the protagonists of The House of Yes, 1997 drama written and directed by Mark S. Waters. The plot is set in affluent Washington suburb during 1983 Thanksgiving when Marty Pascal (played by Josh Hamilton) returns to his home in order to present his fiancée Lesly (played by Tori Spelling) to the rest of family. To say that family doesn't react well to the news of engagement is an understatement. In doing so, Mrs. Pascal (played by Genevieve Bujold), who is disdainful of Lesly's working-class background, looks normal in comparison with Marty's siblings. Anthony (played by Freddie Prinze Jr.), Marty's younger brother, tries very hard to bring Lesly to bed. Marty's sister Jackie O (played by Parker Posey), on the other hand, shows unnaturally high degrees of attachment to her brother. Soon it turns out that Pascals live in the world where money and power banished word "no" from their vocabularies and created another sort of completely dysfunctional family.

Isolated house in middle of stormy night is a setting more suitable for gothic horrors and drama, but Canadian playwright Wendy MacLeod successfully used it for black comedy. Mark S. Waters, on the other hand, wasn't successful in his screen adaptation and The House of Yes doesn't hide its stage roots very well. Isolated setting, limited number of characters, storm that conveniently prevents them from leaving - this could be forgiven, but not the long and often not very interesting dialogues that are supposed to compensate for the lack of film-like storytelling techniques. Some lines are, however, quite hilarious and the acting in the film is superb, with Parker Posey, the darling of 1990s American independent cinema, delivering one of the most memorable portrayals of madness. Unfortunately, Waters for the most part ruined all that with terrible miscasting - Tori Spelling, a child of Hollywood aristocrat having to play working class girl, leaves too disbelief to be successfully suspended during the course of film. The House of Yes can be watched and can be entertaining at times, but the question about this film's long-time impact on viewers' memory is going to be definitive "no".

RATING: 3/10 (+)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on February 12th 2004)