The House of the Spirits (1994)

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

In a carbon copy of the type of role that Vincent Price and George Sanders would have played in the 1940's, Oscar Winner Jeremy Irons gives a rather harsh performance as a true villain whom you want to see be killed off rather than the other characters in this who do die early on. He rapes a young woman living on his property (simply grabbing her as he gallops by on his horse) with no apparent motive or remorse, mistreats his sister (Glenn Close) and beats his wife (Meryl Streep) when she points out truths about him that prove he's a hypocrite after accusing their daughter (Winona Ryder) of being sexually loose.Ghostly visits of the dead return to remind him of the curse they placed upon him in life, rebels take over his regime while allowing him to keep his riches (rendering him powerless to truly enjoy them), and he's almost on the verge of being totally alone when God comes along to give him one more chance to atone. If you've ever longed to see the wonderful Meryl Streep and Glenn Close work together, this is it, and their characters share a closeness that can't be matched within Streep and Irons' marriage. But for Irons, the two sisters-in-law are living too "Glenn Close for Comfort" as underlying lesbian overtones indicate an affection Irons won't allow.He's not really capable of love, and his physical needs seem to be minus passion and any amount of tenderness. At least in "The Color Purple", a similar film where atonement came for a villain, you did see a lot more humanity in that character (played by Danny Glover) than you do with Irons here. I totally despised him even more than his sinister Klaus Von Bulow in "Reversal of Fortune" and longed to see him get his just reward long before the film was over.This covers four generations of two cursed families. It also covers a lot of history, and it seems to be a story probably better told as a mini-series rather than a 2 1/2 hour movie. Like the overlong "Dances With Wolves", I was ready to give up on this long before it was over, sensing that every time a plot was resolved it was ending, but it switched gears to move onto another storyline. By the time the film reaches the political intrigue where Ryder is violated in prison, I had to remind myself that it only had another half hour to go and just hang in there.Wasted in pointless supporting roles (actually nothing more than cameos) are Vanessa Redgrave and Armin-Mulher Stahl, and Antonio Banderas's character is never truly fleshed out to make much of an impact. While impressively filmed, there was too much psychological ugliness to make the beauty strike my eye. Sometimes an all star epic like this where the structure and presence of too many "A"-list stars make the pie too filling. Even if it is both the follow-up for Irons and Streep, Irons and Close, and the chance to see the two greatest divas of the past 30 years together that will remain in my cinematic eye, this one is a depressing indication that when two powerhouse actors want to work together, they should make sure that all the ingredients are there to make the project completely work.

The first time I saw THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS, I had a similar reaction to what most critics seemed to have. I felt the movie was bad, but couldn't say why exactly. It's hard to find fault in a movie with such an esteemed cast, such great sets and cinematography, etc. I knew it was based on a famous novel, so I figured the problem must have been in the adaptation.Upon reading the novel and then going back to the film, I realized something interesting: the film starts out as a faithful adaptation before losing its way, but the biggest issue is the tone.The novel's style of magical realism is, right from the start, difficult to adapt to film. There's green hair, there's magic remedies, and there's a very darkly humorous tone. The film on the other hand is very bleak and brooding, with only some slight supernatural element, which is kind of shrugged off. Roger Ebert, who always has a perfect way of articulating the best criticism, worded it best: "Magic realism, which informs so many South American stories, is treated here as a slightly embarrassing social gaffe, like passing wind. Clara's gifts are not made integral to the story; the filmmakers see them more as ornamentation." For example, in the book, Severo and Nivea die in a car accident and Clara keeps her mother's decapitated head in the basement. Years later, when Clara dies, Esteban tells his servants "Well, we might as well bury my mother-in-law's head now." Moments like that are missing, and instead we just have a scene of Severo and Nivea in a random car accident in the film, and are then never mentioned again. Why even bother having the car accident at all? And why waste Vanessa Redgrave in such a small role? Now this leads into another issue: the most infamous criticism of this film is that it stars a bunch of "gringos" (Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, and Winona Ryder) as Chilean characters. At first glance, you might think this is a shallow thing to criticize: actors play characters of different ethnic backgrounds all the time, nor is there any one way that a Chilean person should "look." But I think this criticism is actually a misdiagnosis of a bigger problem. The problem isn't that these actors are all Anglo; it's the fact that they play their characters in a very Anglicized way for an Anglo audience. They mispronounce names like Tres Marias ("Trays Muh-ree-ahs") and Esteban ("Estuh-baan") and say them all as if these names are foreign to them. Irons, who is British, sounds American while Close, who is American, sounds British. Winona Ryder's character is presented as an all-American girl. There's even a scene towards the end, while Blanca is being tortured and Alba waits for her at home, where Alba is eating out a Kentucky Fried Chicken box in the 1970's! (KFC didn't start opening stores in Chile until 1992. Yes, I actually looked it up out of curiosity). Now you might say "Who cares if they show a KFC box? That's nitpicking." It might not seem important, but on a subtextual level, it's significant. The filmmakers are trying to dilute the Hispanism of the story and create the mindset that this could easily be happening in the US. All of this adds a feeling of displacement to the movie. Because it loses its Chilean and Latino identity, the politics lose their context. What is the coup at the end all about? Why does it happen? What happened to the workers at Tres Marias? Why was Pedro III an enemy of the military's?When you take this story, remove its Hispanic context and magic realism, what you're left with is just a domestic drama, which is less interesting than its book counterpart when it is simplified. The adaptation's biggest change is the removal of an entire generation and combining Blanca and Alba into one character. This completely changes the third act and it now makes no sense for Esteban to help Pedro III escape. In the book, Esteban joins forces with Miguel as they both care about saving Alba. In the film's version, joining forces with Pedro III will in no way have any affect on saving Blanca. The impact of Esteban's relationship with Alba is also lost as she is reduced to only a small child in the film and not given much character. In the book, Esteban has affairs with multiple women at Tres Marias and fathers many children, which everyone is aware of. In the film, he just randomly commits violent rape one day in a very abrupt scene, and then completely forgets about it until a son shows up one day. Because of the removal of an entire generation, Esteban III in the book is Esteban II in the film, and his character is given the Hollywood archetypes of a perverse and disturbed villain rather than as the symbol of lineage of violence he was in the book. In addition to this you have the removal of Blanca's brothers from the book and a climax that doesn't play very dramatically, and the resulting story is very fractured and loses the epic 3-generation sweep of the novel.I am left wondering if any film could have been made of this book, which has so many characters and spans many different episodes. Regardless, this film, and its serious tone, do not suit the book at all, and just leaves audiences wondering what the story they just saw was all about.

I had the pleasure of catching this movie on Netflix after almost 13+ years. I was only 14 the last time my cousin, sister and I had sat together one warm summer afternoon and watched this on HBO. After that I didn't remember the name of the movie, just knew enough to know that Meryl Streep was in it. The movie made a mark on my childhood, I was deeply engrossed by the mystical capabilities on Streep. Her poignance and courage in the movie paved the way for much of the artsy feeling I enjoyed. Years later I still love the movie, frankly because it brought back memories of my childhood and I got a chance to relive it all.

well, i said it all in the summary, i simpley adore the movie and the cast...i would give each actor an Oscar...great, great movie...i'm 25 now and i watched it 4 times in different periods and i always think i won't cry and i always do, about 2 or 3 times...;) meryl s. was absolutely brilliant, jeremy irons also..just brilliant...i wish the movie received more awards... i really don't know anybody who watched it and didn't loved it... also, glenn close was fantastic... the story was beautiful and sad at the same time... i loved the fact that despite everything clara and esteban loved each other so much, and how blanca was close to her parents...