Starring: Kevin Kline, Kristin Scott Thomas, Hayden Christensen
Director: Irwin Winkler
Rated: MA15+
On the surface of it, Life as a House is about the father/son relationship.
By the end of this moving film, however, we realise it’s about loving relationships in general and where we look for compensation when love is absent from our lives.
George Monroe (Kevin Kline) is an architect who finds out he has cancer, and is also retrenched from his job. His terminal illness helps him put his life in perspective. He wants two things, to build his dream house on the land his tyrannical father left him and to be reconciled with his son Sam (Hayden Christensen).
George has been a neglectful father since he divorced Sam’s mother (Kristin Scott Thomas). In the meantime Sam has become a rebellious, multi-pierced, drug dependent and unhappy adolescent. He raises money for his drug habit in the most shocking ways imaginable. Without telling Sam why, George asks him to join him for the summer as they build the house together. While they work, stories are told, secrets are revealed, love is rekindled and lives are changed.
Life as a House could easily have descended into sentimentality if it wasn’t for Kevin Kline’s believable and powerful performance. George might have come to responsible parenthood late, but he wants to get it right and not leave behind the appalling model of fatherhood he was left by his father.
Even though this film ends as a highly redemptive tale, the crudity, coarse language, drug taking and adult themes on the way through will distress some viewers. Families who have ever had a very difficult teenager at home will recognise shades of real life.
The old maxim runs that houses remain houses until love envelops them. Then they become homes. Life as a House shows how true some old maxims can be.
