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A House On A Hill

2001, Movie, NR, 89 mins

A House On A Hill: Review

HOUSE ON A HILL, A
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A house is not a home, at least not in the movies. It's a symbol — witness films ranging from MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE (1948) to THE MONEY PIT (1986) and this low-budget fiction feature by documentarian Chuck Workman. Chic trophy wife Kate (Rebecca Staab), a restauranteur with artistic pretensions, and her wealthy husband, Richard (Jack Conley), are looking for a house when she finds the charred ruins of a project by visionary, but difficult, architect Harry Mayfield (Philip Baker Hall). Mayfield has retreated into cranky obscurity, teaching (or, perhaps more correctly, railing against the high-minded pronouncements of architectural icons like Frank Lloyd Wright) and hanging out with his old friend Sy (James Karen), who's in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. Enchanted with the idea of finding Mayfield and persuading him to build his first house in ages, Kate bulldozes over Richard's reservations and tracks down Mayfield's down-on-her-luck ex-wife, Mercedes (Shirley Knight), who owns the land on which the ruins stand. Through her, Kate contacts Mayfield and persuades him to undertake the commission — she'd like some input, of course; she's already started drawing up designs — and recruits her filmmaker friend, Gaby (Laura San Giacomo), to document the process. Gaby, who's between gigs and could use the cash, discovers that Kate's vanity project is more interesting than she first imagined — the story of the original house on the hill is a microcosm of Mayfield's personal and professional rise and fall. Writer-director Workman is best known for directing the montages that pad out the Academy Awards ceremonies, but has also made more substantive documentaries about Andy Warhol (SUPERSTAR) and the Beat era (THE SOURCE). As a fiction filmmaker, he's considerably in control of his craft. His storytelling is often awkward: Mayfield spends far too much time talking to himself (why write a documentary filmmaker into the cast of characters if not so she can supply motivation any time inner thoughts need articulating?) and the underlying themes of broken dreams and the shallowness of nouveau Los Angeles enthusiasms get lost in the clutter. Workman is also overly fond of small images drifting against the blackness of the larger screen — he's obviously evoking the geometry of architecture, but the effect is annoying. That said, Workman sidesteps the maudlin excesses of 2001's baldly titled LIFE AS A HOUSE, and allows Hall and Knight to deliver a pair of beautifully subtle, melancholy performances. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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