THE HOUSE OF YES
RATING: *** (out of ****)
Miramax / 1:30 / 1997 / R (language, violence, perverse sexual theme) Cast: Parker Posey; Josh Hamilton; Freddie Prinze, Jr.; Tori Spelling; Genevieve Bujold Director: Mark Waters Screenplay: Mark Waters
The characters in the pitch-black comedy "The House of Yes" have so many family scandals and disturbing secrets hanging over their heads that they make the Kennedy clan seem like the Waltons -- an odd comparison, because the Kennedy legacy plays a very active part here. This five-person adaptation of Wendy MacLeod's stage play mines extraordinarily dark material to get its laughs, and whether you find the finished product distasteful or uproarious, it's unarguably daring.
Parker Posey, a versatile actress who frequently appears in independent films, has the lead here. She plays Jackie-O Pascal, an unbalanced young woman who models herself in style and appearance after the same- nicknamed former First Lady. On the eve of Thanksgiving in 1983 (20 years after the Kennedy assassination), the Pascal household -- which includes her younger brother Anthony (Freddie Prinze, Jr.) and mother (Genevieve Bujold) -- are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Marty (Josh Hamilton), Jackie-O's twin brother who's visiting for several days. When Marty does show up, a hurricane begins to rage outside the Washington D.C. estate. There's also a storm inside, because Marty brings along his fiancee Lesly (Tori Spelling) -- a fiancee he has not yet told his family about.
Jackie-O takes the news worst of all, locking herself in a bathroom and leaving Anthony and Mrs. Pascal to entertain Lesly with strange stories of which the less said, the better. After Jackie-O collects herself and joins the party downstairs, it becomes quite clear that this is going to be no ordinary Thanksgiving dinner. And when the lightening causes a power failure and Mrs. Pascal turns in for the night, leaving the remaining four to fend for themselves, events take a strange turn -- Jackie-O tries to jumpstart a bond she shares with her twin sibling and Anthony does his best at attempting to seduce Lesly.
You get a reaction from "The House of Yes" -- apparently called such because inside, just about anything goes -- not too long after it opens, around the time Mrs. Pascal makes an unprintable reference about the nature of Jackie-O and Marty's birth. It becomes quite clear then what warped territory it's going to explore, and you either find it absurdly audacious or downright unholy. If you fall into the former category, you've got to give director/screenwriter Mark Waters credit for having the guts to milk many belly laughs from such perverse material. If you're in the latter, "The House of Yes" will likely make you very uncomfortable.
A small but priceless cast backs Waters up all the way. Posey clearly has fun with her extremely topsy-turvy role, and her delivery alone is worth the Special Recognition for Acting award she received at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Hamilton is well-used as her foil; coming from such duds as "With Honors" the people-who-eat-people flick "Alive," Marty Pascal is probably his best part yet. Bujold does nice, eccentric work even if her character is underwritten, and Spelling does an interesting riff on her goody-goody "Beverly Hills 90210" image. If there's a scene-stealer, though, it's definitely Prinze, who goes from giddy naivety to deadpan deviousness with appealing enthusiasm.
The fall of "The House of Yes" is that it comes apart at a climax which attempts to tie too many sketchy plot details (Mr. Pascal's mysterious disappearance the day Kennedy was shot, for instance) with a conclusion that's dramatically unsatisfying. Unfortunately, I can't say exactly how without giving away a few key plot details that are meant to shock. Let's just say the last 15 minutes or so are a cheap attempt to wrap things up all too quickly. That's a shame, because all of these characters are delicious creations, each of whom sustains enough personality for his or her own film.
It's not likely that any of this matters, though, because not a lot of people will see "The House of Yes" anyway, and therefore it should only spend a few weeks in the art houses before being remembered as one of Miramax's more outrageous indie features. Mainstream audiences won't see it because of it plays such potentially troubling matters for laughs (remember "Citizen Ruth"?). The rest of us -- and we know who we are -- will go, and generally have a good time.
© 1997 Jamie Peck E-mail: jpeck1@gl.umbc.edu Visit the Reel Deal Online: http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~jpeck1/
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