# House of Yes, The (1997)

### reviewed by
Ted Prigge

    THE HOUSE OF YES (1997)
    A Film Review by Ted Prigge
    Copyright 1998 Ted Prigge

Director: Mark Waters Writer: Mark Waters (based on the play by Wendy MacLeod) Starring: Parker Posey, Josh Hamilton, Tori Spelling, Freddie Prinze Jr, Geneviève Bujold, Rachel Leigh Cook, David Love

The boyfriend brings his fiance home to meet his disfunctional family...how many times have we seen this set-up? In "The House of Yes," this is what happens, only the film throws us a couple weird pitches, keeping us off guard and generally freaking us out like no film bearing this cliche has in recent memory. For one, they're all much weirder, and for another one, one of his family members...well, thinks she's Jackie Onassis. Instead of being just a cheap comedy, it has become a cheap, elongated "Tales From the Crypt" episode.

The film opens by introducing the whole "Jackie Onassis" obsession, which inhibits the one daughter (Parker Posey, making her 97 rounds in indie/art house films) in the family, who goes by "Jackie-O," but whether her name really is Jackie, we never discover. In the opening credits, we see her as a young child in the early 70s being filmed doing an impersonation of Jackie Onassis, complete with the pink dress and pill box hat. We later discover that the obsession with Jackie Onassis is a result of the disappearance of their father on the day Kennedy was assasinated. Okay...

The real plot of the film deals with, as I said, the one brother, Marty (Josh Hamilton), bringing home his perky fiance, Lesly (Tori Spelling - yes, you read correctly), to meet his family, who live in a giant mansion in D.C. There, she meets his family members: his freaky mother (Geneviève Bujold, who I thought was dead), a reclusive bizarre nut; his dorky and clueless brother, Anthony (Freddie Prinze Jr., who played the boring boyfriend in "I Know What You Did Last Summer"); and...Jackie-O, who is infactuated with him so much that when she hears of the engagement, she screams and runs off to comb her hair.

Taking place on Thanksgiving night, we are introduced to one weird evening where the disfunctions of the family take off, and some extremely weird things and facts are introduced. Anthony finds he lusts after Lesly, and begins to comfort her as the evening goes on...in his own blunt way (which means trying to get her to talk to him in what he thinks is "Girl Talk"). And we discover that Jackie-O is: a) totally insane (duh!), b) just got back from the hospital, and c) had sex with Marty when they were kids and still holds a torch for him.

This is pretty much all the film is, and that becomes a big problem because we discover that the only thing this film has to offer is some really weird things, like incest and obsessions with Jackie Onassis. "The House of Yes" has nothing much to offer in terms of characterization, depth, even some kind of message (although I guess the message of this film is...families are weird). So what it does is pull out as many controversial jokes as it can, intending to shock the audience into appreaciating the film.

This is what's wrong with the film. Because it doesn't have the guts to go any deeper with the themes and ideas it introduces, it becomes shallow and pretty much redundant. By the ending, you're just hoping that the film will suddenly perk up, dive deep into what we saw before, and expand on them. It doesn't. Everything introduced is pretty much just a contrivance to freak us out; I mean, why exactly did the writer chose Jackie Onassis to be the obsession if the film is never going to do anything with it but stage an addmittingly humorous enactment of the assasination?

But granted, the film has many strong points that kinda save it. For one, there are some really great one-liners and exchanges, even if the script isn't all that great. The acting is also pretty good, with all the actors doing good jobs (Freddie Prinze Jr is a terrible actor, but his bad acting works with the character for some reason, and Tori Spelling finds all the right notes for her part). One of the biggest shocks for me was to see Geneviève Bujold, who has pretty much been floundering since the late 70s. She gives a pretty incredible and comical performance.

But the real star of the show is Parker Posey, who does what has to be the best acting of her short yet lengthy career thus far. She goes completely over the top with her performance, and watching her do her schtick is one of the real pleasures of watching this film. If any performance would define Posey as an actress and make her a star, it's this.

It's too bad she wasn't in a better film, as "The House of Yes" is a really disappointing little film. It has some great ideas and all, but the fact that it never does a thing with them (probably because the writer wanted it to be really short) is what becomes wrong with this film. I will say this though: the film is pretty comical, and yes, I laughed several times throughout it. And the film held my attention the whole time, which is something to be commended. Of course, the flip-side of that is I was waiting for something to really happen.

    MY RATING (out of 4): **

Homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/8335/

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