HOUSESITTER
A film review by Ken Johnson
Copyright 1992 Ken Johnson
105 min., PG, Comedy, 1992 Director: Frank Oz Cast: Steve Martin, Goldie Hawn, Dana Delany, Peter MacNichol, Robert B. Shull, Laurel Cronin, Julie Harris, Donald Moffat
Steve Martin first meets Goldie Hawn at a party and then later waitressing at a restaurant. He gets invited into her house and tells her about a house he owns that is empty. The next day, unknown to Martin, Hawn moves into the empty house. She starts making up stories about her and Martin to explain why she is there. Martin is in love with Dana Delany, who is in the town that the house is located in. Martin finds out what Hawn has done and tries to use her to get Delany.
I saw HOUSESITTER the weekend that it opened and am just getting around to finishing my review on it. HOUSESITTER is a very funny film and is well worth seeing. I don't know whether to recommend that you see it in the theater or wait for the video. The film will lose nothing on video, but if you can't wait to see it you would be better off going to the theater to see it. I give HOUSESITTER a four on a scale of zero to five. HOUSESITTER is rated PG for adult situations and explicit language.
HOUSESITTER is the first of two films coming out this summer with Goldie Hawn, the second is DEATH BECOMES HER. I have always been a fan of Goldie Hawn's films and sometimes of Steve Martin's, so I hurried out to see this one. Both Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin did a great job acting. They were both funny, but not in an obnoxious sort of way, like Steve Martin sometimes is. Dana Delany does a great job in her supporting role and adds a lot to the film. The two bums, Robert B. Shull and Laurel Cronin, I think, were excellent. Peter MacNichol's character was, in my opinion, a very annoying character, but then again that is all MacNichol seems to play. Steve Martin's father, I don't know who played him, was excellent and very convincing. The jokes in this film were, for the most part, hidden under the surface and just sat there allowing you to laugh if you caught it and if you missed it there is another waiting just around the turn of the film reel instead of forcing you to laugh like slapstick comedies do.
The film is well written and doesn't have many holes in it. It definitely keeps you entertained. The characters are interesting and well molded. They seem to come alive on the screen and do their own things. The sets and locations are great. The town where the house is located looks like any little town and is simple in its ways. The house itself I don't think was well designed, however, at least I wouldn't want to live in it (maybe it's just me).
Ken J. blj@mithrandir.cs.unh.edu
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews