IN THE HOUSE – The Review

Director François Ozon has improved his craft by being prolific; he has made just about a film a year since his debut feature Sitcom in 1998.

Fabrice Luchini plays Germain Germain, a failed author turned jaded literature teacher at the Lycée Gustave Flaubert.  The film begins with a new school year.

Germain’s first assignment is for the students to write about their summer’s activities. Germain is astounded by the mediocrity of his students’ work; he reads aloud the shoddy essays to his wife,Jeanne (Kristin Scott-Thomas) who sympathizes with his frustration.  He picks the papers at random, expecting each to be worse than the next, when suddenly, one essay captivates both of them.

Student Claude Garcia (excellent performance by Ersnst Umhauer) has spent the summer  imagining the perfect life of his classmate Rapha (Bastien Ughette). There is only one scene that reveals Claude’s real life:  he lives and must care for his disabled father in a shabby apartment.  It’s understandable that seeing Rapha play with his happy, married, parents, particularly his beautiful mother Esther (played by Roman Polanski’s wife Emmanuelle Seigner) would stir his imagination and envy.

Claude not only displays marvelous talent as a writer, he also reveals his skills as a manipulator by ending his essay at the assigned length with the words “To be Continued.”

Gernain and Jeanne are captivated.  Germain begins privately tutoring Claude, to nurture the talent he recognizes, and more importantly, to continue hearing the story.  Claude’s writing is so good and his story so compelling, that Germain is willing to compromise his ethics to find out what happens next.

The story is equally compelling for the audience as Claude realizes his dream of belonging to his imagined perfect family.  He finds a way to believably enter their house and their lives.

As Jeanne listens to each installment and discusses them with Germain, she comments as a conscience and editor- contradictory roles, but having become as addicted as her husband, needing the fix of the next installment, she’s become an accomplice by encouraging the inappropriate teacher-student relationship that this story is creating.

Ozon’s breaking of the fourth wall (characters addressing the audience) is masterful.  At no moment was I confused if the action on screen was part of the story within the story or part of the main story of the movie.

Jeanne’s attempt to create an art gallery allows Ozon to mock the pretentiousness of modern art.  This side story isn’t sufficient to even call a B-plot as it doesn’t at all detract from the movie.  I particularly enjoyed the art pieces Jeanne presents to the gallery’s owners; they are so wonderfully inappropriate I couldn’t begin to describe them without blushing.

While Renoir was a wonderful movie, In The House should appeal to a much wider audience. It’s the best French film I’ve seen so far this year.