In the House (2013)

Serious art-house territory as director François Ozon offers another film (his third) about writers. Young student worms his way into his best friend's house and family, observing and probing their bourgeois, middle class home. Sharing his voyeuristic streak, he writes stories about them and submits them to his composition teacher. Always ending, "To be continued ..." The teacher soon becomes absorbed, as does his wife, with whom he shares the stories. Maddening difficult to tell if the student's observations were accurate or partial. Were the stories clichéd, balanced, stereotyped? Was the teacher layering his own filters and fantasies? The house of cards narrative steadily teeters higher. Not exactly a thriller, but an unsettling ride.

What a blast it is when you are drawn into a film right from the start, and it keeps sucking you into the story. I've seen several of the productive Francois Ozon's former films, including "Swimmingpool" and "Le temps qui reste", which I regard as the best. Until this, that is!Dans la maison (In the house) is built up as a thriller, but is really a drama with comic touch. It's a mind bender. The story is loosely based upon the Spanish stage play "El chico de la ultimate fila" by Juan Mayorga. A good casted crew of actors, and a quite advanced story telling rhythm, as well as surprising twigs both in narration as well as in the story. Photography is beautiful and quite inventive, mixing camera angles as the story telling is focusing on the details in the story. The film is much like reading a book, while getting interrupted, but interrupted by things you don't mind!A teacher in French, the native language, starts off a new school year, and gets an interesting pupil, Claude, which starts writing an essay of how he spies on his "best friend's" family. The story continues, though the teacher is having a love/hate relationship to the project as a whole. He dislikes the content of the story, but are intrigued, both by the writing talent as well as the storytelling. The teacher wants an intrigue, and gets more than he bargained for. A dangerous game starts with the invasion of the family... Is the teacher leading the student, or is the student leading the teacher? Is this fantasy, or for real?It's an interesting film in many ways, a meta story which is very artistically told, with tension, and lots of ways to go. The intriguing storytelling, the surprises, the tension, all gives a reason for discussion as well as confusing you about the theme of the film.Fabrice Luchini is playing the main role as teacher flawlessly, and Kirsten Scott Thomas balances we'll as his wife. Ernst Umhauer is excellent as Pupil Claude. He is cute and innocent, as well as creepy and down right scary, but believable in his 16 year old curiosity. Sharp, but also daring and playful. A pure talent, well instructed. Emanuel's Seigner as the watched mother, Denis Menichet as the father... They all are brilliant.I enjoyed this immensely, both because it's different, artful, funny, poetic, pulp, playful and gives you many thoughts of ethics. Watch out fir the film auteur Ozon. He is getting better and better in what he does. Wonder who is his teacher... I see many inspirations, among them Hitchcock and Rear Window, but I'll leave up to you to think about the rest... Marvelous film making!

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.

Without getting as wordy as some and giving away a bunch of plot details and quirky turns... How often do you see a flick and before it's even over tell yourself you absolutely must see it again? I've already seen In The House twice and can't wait to see it again, because I just figured out the major trick (rather a mindf--k) of it...and I'm not telling. The person I first saw it with agreed he had to see it again, too, and the person with whom I just saw it (May 22, 2013 in San Francisco) said she needed to buy the DVD as soon as it came out, so she could keep on showing it to more people and get into discussions about it. Not only that, the couple sitting in front of us were knocked out by it...and actually the guy had already seen it and had to see it again, so he brought a lady friend, who right after the film ended said, "OMG! I have to see this again!" And trust me, so will you. Now let's hope the U.S. doesn't decide they have to make an American version and totally wreck it, like they did with the excellent Danish film, Brothers (Brødre, 2004) with that godawful U.S. thing released in 2009. Leave it alone, please.