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"Life as a House"
(Reviewed October 3, 2001)
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Here is the best way to convey how insultingly, unwatchably, vomitously sappy "Life as a House" is: Kevin Kline seems to be impersonating "serious movie"-mode Robin Williams throughout the film. Think of that trademark Williams expression, the brave smile with its corners turned down as wet-but-twinkling eyes look heavenward with hope and gratitude at how wonderful life is, even with all of its struggles and cares. And think of the way that Williams minces through his sensitive-man roles with all the forced whimsy of a clueless "in-his-own-world" mime, occasionally going stone-faced for big-drama moments of ridiculously over-earnest sincerity. God, I hate that guy.
That's exactly how Kline plays the role of an architect's model-maker who gets canned and cancer on the same day, then decides to reconnect with the distant son from his first marriage by using his remaining days on earth to build a house on the site of his dilapidated shack. Holy cow, where do I begin to catalog the multitudes of inanities in this flick? The "tear down the old house and build a new one" allegory is so forced that all those carpenter hammers on screen may as well be pounding on your cranium. I picture a bunch of venal studio execs (are there any other kind?) telling each other, "The Oprah and Sally Jesse crowd will eat this slop right up! Surly, death-obsessed, inhalant-sniffing, defiant, sexually-confused son goes from multiply-pierced Marilyn Manson fan to healthy all-American boy in one summer! I'm smellin' a hundred mil, easy!"
Beneath that obvious bit of crass calculation, there could be another reason why this pathetic "Pay It Forward"-ish piece of crap got greenlighted. It has instant appeal for every over-40 Hollywood jerkoff who ditched Wife Number One and his kids for a trophy wife, but who wants to think that he could make everything right again with some hokey symbolic gesture before meeting the reaper. In other words, it has instant appeal for Oscar voters who would like to believe in this kind of idiotic wish-fulfillment fantasy.
Still, imagine sitting in on a pitch meeting where the writer goes through this kind of spiel:
"Okay, we start out going for the cheap laughs. Ritzy Southern California neighborhood of cliffside, million-dollar homes. Make that multi-million-dollar homes, with ocean views all the way to Catalina. Pan across those immaculate estates to the most run-down, falling-apart shack ever seen outside of Arkansas. Kevin Kline is in there, sleeping. He wakes up, strides outdoors in nothing but his jockeys, and takes a whizz off the cliff, in full view of his uptight neighbors! Then his dog--make it a big Lab or something--cocks a leg on the front bumper of a neighbor's Lexus! Every Joe Lunchbucket and Sally Soccermom in America is lovin' it already, right! Don't worry, they won't even think about how preposterous it is that the weatherbeaten shack is sitting on a zillion-dollar piece of real estate more likely to be owned by the real-life Kevin Kline than the character he plays.
"Kline gets fired after 20 years by one of those smirking, intellectual types that everybody hates. Throw in some `take this job and shove it' rage as Kline breaks up a bunch of the models he spent his life making for `the man.' Can you hear the nine-to-fivers cheering in the aisles yet? Then it's tug-the-heartstrings-'til-they-sing time. Kline collapses outside his former workplace. Yikes! It's the big `C!' He tells a nurse how lousy life has been since his wife split 10 years ago, and how no one has touched him since then. She closes the curtain around his hospital bed and starts giving him the kind of attention that might get nursing organizations really pissed at us, but maybe not, 'cause most nurses probably would love to get all touchie-feelie with a movie star if they had the chance.
"Cut to his ex-wife's place. Big glass house, ritzy. Sam, the 16-year-old she had with Kline, is a total mess. Her new husband is so stiff he makes Charles Grodin look like George Clooney. He not only hates Sam, he can't even hug the two little munchkins he and the wife have had together! Cold, baby--cold!
"You can see where this is going, right? Dad leaves the hospital but doesn't tell anybody he's terminal. How is he still able to run around with enough strength and vitality to pull a one-man `This Old House' routine, even though he has only months to live? Hey, this is Hollywood, baby! Go with the flow!
"He offers to take his son off his ex's hands for the whole summer. Father and son fight but then bond. Father and ex remember what they loved about each other. Kiss-kiss, hug-hug, pass out the hankies!"
"But there's more! Just for kicks, let's throw in the jailbait teenage daughter of one of Kline's neighbors who likes to shower with Sam--and do more than shower, if you get my drift! Also, she dates this sleazy Porsche-driving high school stud who...I'm really going out on a ledge here, but stick with me...who tries to pimp poor, penniless Sam out to rich guys, so Sam can pay for weed! No, no, wait, it will work, I'm telling you! We're living in a `Dawson's Creek' world, people! And then maybe that teenage pimp can start banging the jailbait girl's mom, and the jailbait girl can even make a play for Kline, snuggling up in bed with him while he's zonked on painkillers. Okay, putting a sex farce in the middle of a weeper is kinda offbeat, but we've gotta have something in this dopey chick flick to keep the guys in the audience awake!
"Big finish time: We're gonna go with a one-two punch. First, we use a painfully stupid, coincidence-contrived plot development that will get big guffaws from the kind of TV-watching doofuses who would pay to see this kind of junk. Then we top it all off with a finale that is so sickeningly sweet, the Wal-Mart crowd will run to the phones to insist that their friends simply HAVE to go see this feel-good, family-friendly flick!"
Or, in other words: This movie is so far beyond awful that I thought of adding it to my three-way tie for worst movie of 2001 (which currently includes "Tomcats," "A Knight's Tale" and "Bandits"). The only things that kept it off that list were performances by Kristin Scott Thomas (who tries to bring some restrained dignity to the cliched "neglected wife" role); Jenna Malone (who is like some "Barely Legal" fantasy chicklet come to life--"You looked like a really good kisser when I watched you with my mom, and I wanted to find out if I was right"); and Mary Steenburgen (who graces the public with a full-dorsal nude scene, and who looks pretty damned well-preserved as she preens, black-lingerie-clad, in front of a full-length mirror).
They were good enough to keep "Life as a House" from getting an "F-minus," but not enough to make it squeak any higher than an "F." Avoid, avoid, avoid.
Back Row Grade: F
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