Housekeeping

I like Bill Forsyth films and this got good reviews so I decided to watch it. However it is quite slow, and i found it disappointing. It did not hold my attention. The plot and script lacked something. I found it less than credible. If a film is good, I never question credibility - it's not a documentary after all. But when the film is mediocre, then all sorts of things generate questions and make me think, " that would never happen". On a positive note: I thought the start was excellent. I liked that the story was being told by one of the girls. The acting was good. I suppose that it fits the Bill Forsyth criterion of being quirky and different, but it lacks the humour of films like Gregory's Girl and That Sinking Feeling.

Two orphaned sisters growing up in a small Northwest mountain town in the 1950s drift apart when the eccentric habits of their itinerant guardian aunt (Christine Lahti) push one to the shelter of social conformity and draw the other outside, to an uncertain but more exciting life apart. The film was sold as another of Bill Forsythe's whimsical comedies, but the humor is overshadowed by the lingering memory of loss and dissatisfaction: a grandfather's tragic death, a mother's lonely suicide, and so forth. Likewise there isn't anything funny about Aunt Sylvie's deeply rooted vagabond instincts (expressed, for once, as something more than merely charming or quaint), which attract the more introverted sister (narrating the details) as strongly as they repel the rest of the community. It's a haunting, almost melancholy film, carefully paced to the rhythms of small town life in hard times, and with a fascinating undercurrent (note the irony of the title) equating the freedom of the open road with the liberation of women from domestic dependency. The final image, after Sylvie has introduced her niece to a life of wanderlust, is enough to lure the hobo out of any viewer.

This is a film of a rare, intimate perception that is aimed with pinpoint precision at a few unusual characters and the places they inhabit. At first its subjects seem simple, but like many people do, these characters are merely shielding themselves, hesitant to reveal much of their real natures except as as rare gifts in intimate moments. It must have been tremendously challenging to create and portray natural introverts like these characters, but as an introvert myself (I assert that characteristic without any touch of self-disparagement), I found this story rewardingly resonant of my own experience, especially of childhood memories, although indeed my outward circumstances had little in common with this story.

Almost never has any film conveyed a sense and feeling of a few small places so clearly and so effortlessly. We cherished the village in "Local Hero", but Fingerbone is an incomparably more realistic and deftly drawn place (despite occasional overreaching, e.g., the town's name, and a train accident that stretches credulity in more than one way).

For anyone willing to watch, dusk and the blue pre-dawn illuminate and suffuse these characters' lives. Sylvie sits by herself in the "dark", but there are wonderful secrets to discover in places that seem a void to others. Even well-meaning intrusions, like interruptions to meditation, can seem tragic.

Even more distinctly than Forsyth's other work, this film certainly wouldn't appeal to everyone, but it is a beautiful and evocative character study that has the courage to deal with personalities, events and emotions too obscure or inaccessible for most mainstream filmmakers. Forsyth deserves credit for having gotten this made in the first place, as well as for the eclectic perception that gave the film its many unique and worthwhile qualities.

Bill Forsyth is a Scottish-born director and writer of great insight with a whimsical view of the world. His movies tend to focus on low-key characters and obscure places rarely seen in filmdom. "Local Hero" is one of my all-time favorites. I now add "Housekeeping" to the list.

The movie is adapted from a novel by Marilynne Robinson. It takes place in the tiny town of Fingerbone, located in the Cascade Mountains of what I assume is Eastern Washington or Idaho, given many references to Spokane and Portland. I have lived in Seattle for many years, and I adore the scenery featured in this movie. One can almost smell the pungent, bracing aroma of decaying logs, fir trees, and smoldering campfires in the outdoor scenes.

Christine Lahti is an actress of rare gifts. Her basic decency and warmth comes through in every film I have seen her in. She plays rootless Sylvie, who comes to be the guardian of two adolescent orphaned nieces, Ruthie and Lucille. The story takes place in the 1950s, and the fashions, cars, and social mores are all dead-on. She and the girls live in a large house on the outskirts of Fingerbone, the same home Sylvie and her deceased sister Helen grew up in. The story explores the relationships of these three women, and the shifting dynamics of those relationships. There is an implied parallel of Ruthie and Lucille with Sylvie and Helen. "Housekeeping" supplies a rich family history for these off-beat characters, and provides a context for their behavior and development.

There are very few men in this film. It is resolutely about the lives of women among other women. The story unfolds over several years, and we see how Lucille (the younger sister) comes to be the responsible one, who yearns to live 'like other people'. Sylvie exists in a dream world, and Ruthie is gradually drawn into that land of longing and detachment. Eccentric is how most people would describe the behavior of Sylvie, but I prefer haunted. Haunted by the lingering presence of dead siblings and parents, haunted by the inability to fit in to modern society, haunted by the endless possibilities of other places and times. To me, "Housekeeping" is a ghost story, but these ghosts yet live.

"She IS sad. I mean, she should be sad."

I love finding little gems like this. What a find Housekeeping (1987) is. What a watch. This is the second Bill Forsyth film I've watched in recent weeks and I'm completely in awe of both. With storytelling like this it's such a joy to watch. The quirks and eccentricities of the characters add another layer of magic in these stories and go a long way in emphasising that "I don't belong here" element that's was present in this film and also Local Hero (1983).

I'm amazed more people don't know about this one.