Life as a House (2001)

Sam Monroe (Hayden Christensen) is a mess and doesn't get along with his stepfather. His mother Robin Kimball (Kristin Scott Thomas) divorced from his father George Monroe (Kevin Kline) 10 years ago. George gets fired from his hated architectural job. He's dying from cancer and decides to tear down his shack to build his dream house. He has a combative relationship with his next door neighbor Colleen Beck (Mary Steenburgen). Her daughter Alyssa (Jena Malone) is Sam's schoolmate and she likes Sam. George forces Sam to spend the summer with him building the house. School drug dealer Josh (Ian Somerhalder) recruits Sam to prostitute himself and they're arrested by the police.I am not a Hayden Christensen fan. Other than 'Shattered Glass', I rarely like his performances. For this movie, he's well cast for this whiny bitter teen character. He has a pathetic self-indulgent streak that is perfect for this role. This movie can be overly sentimental. I would rather not have some of the sappy talk between Sam and Robin. It needs to stay focused on the father and son relationship. There are also a few too many people sleeping around. That cul-de-sac turns into orgy central all of a sudden. There is a solid foundation of a sentimental movie in the middle of everything.

just beautiful. for performance. for profound - game of reflections -story. and for the art to discover root of basic things. tale of a family. crisis, frustrations, lost of patience. and a house. as axis, silhouette, mirror. river of tensions. search of sense. a war out of limits. or sense. in fact, a secret battle. and the fragile, magnificent victory. victory of each character. against it. result - touching-subtle picture of every day. a lesson. and more. because this film is only echo of ordinaries situations. nothing more. its real virtue - to be an universal image. not inspiration for solutions. not sad. just meditation about root. root of small events. and build of a house into the heart of others soul.

I have to say, this is a very weird movie lol. No joke to that. This is really a different kind of movie. Usually, you only get comedies that make references to all sorts of other movies, but this is probably one of the few drama pieces that makes a lot of references all over the place. You have some of the movie Valley Girl going on, You got some of the Hallmark Channels stuff going on(except the acting is good here),you have some Risky Business stuff going on, some Jerry Maguire references, then an American Beauty/Midnight Express reference, I mean all kinds of movies in this one little movie. This movie is insane, it's a big dramatic soap opera and in some weird, prolific way, it works! Hayden Christensen is terrific in this film, he's one of these actors where if he really gets and understands the material, he can be better than anyone, but if he doesn't really get the material then watch out. Although you do have to show him a little bit of mercy for the Star Wars ones, those were written so poorly that even Natalie Portman wasn't all that great either, and she's usually terrific in everything she's in.But Christensen really should have been nominated for an academy award for this movie because really he steals the movie and it's really only because of him and Kevin Kline's performance that this movie swims and doesn't sink. Honestly, if it's not for the phenomenal performances of Hayden Christensen and Kevin Kline, this movie really isn't that good at all then, but these two actors truly save this movie and make it something worthwhile to watch at least. I think I was so blown away by this movie because I think most of us as movie watchers, are so use to the traditional format of a movie, how it's written from beginning to end, and how it comes across to us on screen from beginning to end. But this movie is all over the place. It doesn't stick to anything traditional about movie writing or directing at all. And it's not a great or perfect movie by an means, but I give it props for having the guts to make an attempt for making a movie completely out of the norm and against the usual, and traditional format. Really if you think about it, life is crazy and so much is always going on. So this movie's format is correct in a sense, that life is really a big dramatic soap opera(maybe not always to the extremes as this movie, but nonetheless it is). So much is always going on in one's life and then so much is going on in their neighbors life and in their neighbors life, and it's good, bad and all kinds crazy stuff going on. So this movie shouldn't really surprise us, but it probably will surprise you because we're so use to being force fed a movie that goes by the Hollywood Format of how a movie should play out(And I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing, but I am pointing that out). Life as a House, not the greatest movie, but definitely worth a look.

Screenwriter Mark Andrus attempts to write for beleaguered middle-aged adults as well as 'misunderstood' high school kids in "Life as a House", and neither group comes off especially well. Kevin Kline, a divorced and unemployed model-maker recently fired from an architectural design firm, decides to tear down his ramshackle oceanfront abode to build his dream home (perhaps not the ideal time); he also chooses this unintended respite to get reacquainted with his pierced, pill-popping teenage son, who wears eye makeup to show us he's rebellious (also to allow his stepfather to call him "queer" so we can see what an insensitive jerk the guy is). Andrus doesn't miss a beat: we also get Kristin Scott Thomas as Kline's still-loving ex-wife who harps at him exhaustively when she's not coyly flirting (she pays a visit and whispers, "I dreamed about your house last night..."). The moody, foul-mouthed son has enough problems to star in his own movie; he berates his father, too, with such dialogue as, "You can't promise me anything because you don't have anything to promise!" It's a groan-worthy soap opera accented with little bits of naughty business (like Kline urinating in his yard when his plumbing goes out) which serve no purpose except to make us snicker. It turns out the kid isn't "queer" after all once he begins trading jaded endearments with the conveniently-placed doe-eyed lass next door, and Kline gets his way with the city ordinance after taking a chainsaw to a cabinet and installing that all-important enclosure around his toilet. If only real life were so simple! * from ****