HOUSE OF GAMES
(not a review)
(just ruminations)
Copyright 1987 pax@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
This film reminds me of SLEUTH, THE CONVERSATION, and BLOW UP. That makes two pluses and a minus, but not in that order. It has an undercurrent of violence and, as the movie progresses, insanity, a current that eddies in your subconscious and only surfaces later.
In one sentence, it is the story of a woman who, sick of her life, takes a walk on the wild side. In two, it is an elaborate con gone awry. It is clever but flawed. She is not quite believable, the plot is not quite believable, it is one of those plots where everything too neatly fits. And it relies too much on misdirection for its effect--I could see what was coming next not always but too often. So I keep thinking that it is too witty, too slick, to be that good. In fact there is a time in the movie after which they were in such a hurry to wrap it all up that it is plainly forced.
Perhaps it is the suspicion that it is merely an understated piece of feminist propaganda delving into real persona purely by accident that leaves me feeling so ambiguous about this film. Certainly both women in the film are strong successful professionals, and all the men are conniving and criminally deceitful; albeit, there is a certain necessity for this--there are no loose strings, no gratuitous anything. Certainly the men prey on the women (well, on the woman). And certainly she gets even. So it could be femiganda, but the rhetoric is missing, and she is subtly demented always, and she is unusually dense. We figure out what is going on long, long, long before she does. So if it is femiganda, it's an ambivalent strain and I like it anyway.
This one gets 4 out of 5 on my 1 to 5 point order of magnitude scale.
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