"The House" Review: Obsession Through a Stop-Motion Lens
- Vega
- Jan 23, 2022
- 7 min read
With a recent palate full of eastern influence and genre films, as good as some have been, it was refreshing to see a Netflix Original that actually looked original. As odd as the trailer made it seem, it built enough intrigue to spare an hour and a half for this work of stop-motion animation out of the UK. The movie is tagged as a dark comedy with an anthology format from three different directors that tells three tales surrounding the same house across different times as it is inhabited by different characters. Though it is not explicitly stated within the film or in other descriptions, I could see this anthology as also occuring across different realities with how the house seems to morph slightly throughout the three tales. But, as it is not mentioned anywhere, I will take the alterations as being indicative of how the various casts perceive the house based on their individual motivations. Within each story, I saw a theme of obsession that plays itself out in, usually, disparaging ways, beginning with....
Part I: “and heard within, a lie is spun”
In the movie's introductory tale, we meet a moderately poor family whose lack of wealth and resources are highlighted when the father's wealthy family makes an uncomfortable visit. As the family's daughter, Mabel, proudly highlights how her mother, Penny, made her clothes, the wealthy express their disappointment in the life that Raymond, the father, has succumbed to living. In a drunken stupor, Raymond makes a deal with a mysterious architect to build them a house with the only condition being that they live in it without any of their previous possessions. Once they move in, the architect continues to make strange and sudden changes to the home and Mabel starts to notice both these oddities and the slowly brewing changes in her parents. As her parents become engrossed in their newfound privileges, Mabel is left to watch them become shells of the people they once were as she longs for the home she once had.
If nothing else, this initial story sets the bar for both how odd this experience will be and how well done the stop-motion animation is. This is a story that captures the obsession of attachment, with a family that initially took pride in the little it had, particularly in the items that held sentimental value to them. However, once they are given the opportunity to financially rise above that, the parents fall deep into being spoiled and lavished with unique furniture and cooked feasts that their obsession with the items that capture their newfound status becomes their identities. Penelope, though, maintains the wholesome perspective that she once held about her family and served as the POV character that could differentiate the old adage of what makes a house a home. She experienced the strange occurences in random rooms, the horror-esque characters and their unsettling noises, and the lack of cohesion in the house as being out of the ordinary. The makes and models of the characters were that of pin cushions, almost like voodoo dolls, in their flocked, potato sack appearances. That alone was enough to highlight the bizarreness of this dark family drama.
Part II: “then lost is truth that can't be won”
The second tale structures our forever home in the middle of the big city, as an anthropomorphic rat, a developer, is putting every penny he owns into flipping this home into the perfect modern oasis. As resources and laborers become ever distant, the developer has to take on the entire expedition on his own, all while avoiding his bank's loan officers. With pressure high to make a sale, the developer begins to encounter unforseen obstacles towards his perfect vision, such as a sudden bug infestation and the wrong grocery delivery for his open house. When potential buyers appear few and far between due to quality control issues, the developer becomes overly hospitable as the buyers cross the line with a “try it before you buy it” attitude and never actually leave. As the mental toll that this project has taken on the developer becomes clear, a trip to the hospital ends with him throwing away all of his previous ambitions and returning to the home to find it returned to its previous ruins.
What I thought to be the weakest of the three stories, this was equally unsettling and frustrating. There was something about stop-motion bugs and beetles that is extra skin-crawling. but when those same bugs then have a stage-play number in the basement, it became hard to know what this story was trying to do. In one sense, it was frustrating to see the developer's hard work slowly unravel as potential buyers drug dirt across the white carpets. In the same respect, it was hard to not see how his tunnel vision and obsession for selling the house put him in a lose-lose situation. The story really takes a turn with the introduction of the interested couple and their unsettling designs: one rat being short and stout with a small head and the other rat shaped like the same beetles infesting the house. Infestation seems the theme of this tale, with rodent characters, which are common for household infestations, the bug infestations, and the infestation of the interested couple and their extended family. Even with a slew of thematic layers, the story lacks in entertainment and in an ending that fosters any closer understanding of its point.
Part III: “Listen again and seek the sun”
Feeling much closer in stature to the house's build in Part I and surrounded by flooding in a pseudo-post-apocalyptic landscape, the house is owned by another anapamorphic character, a cat named Rosa. After all but Elias, a fisherman, and Jen, a hippie, have left due to the rising waters, the owner struggles in her determination to finish making repairs and renovations to the home while her two tenants are unable to pay her with money. Her frustrations with the tenants continues to rise until she finds hope in Cosmos, identified by Jen as her spirit partner, who claims to be handyman who can help with the repairs. The supporting characters begin to offer Rosa the unwanted truths about her future ambitions for the home as she learns that Cosmos has ben secretely using parts of the house to build boats for himself, Jen, and Elias to leave. As Rosa realizes all that she blinded herself to behind the lens of her obsession, a parting gift from Cosmos gives her the chance to turn her imprisonment into freedom.
The most complete feeling of the three stories, it was also the only one to have a satisfying, or positive, ending. From the gloom of Part I to the unsettling Part II, comes this hopeful third entry that sees Rosa, stuck in the obsession of establishing a future, as non-realistic as it was, pulled away to a happier place. As Cosmos' words lead Rosa to the realization that she has not appreciated all that she has had while focusing on everything that was missing, she became less attached to the house and more attached to the moment. This was the only story that had some remnance of well-rounded characters that could evoke emotions, had layers and complexes, and were the best part of their story. It may take a bit of extra imagination to pull out, but I immediately thought this to be a story about being trapped in purgatory. There are lines of paranormal thought that establish ghosts as spirits that still have unfinished business, such as Rosa's business with the house, and can not move on until they come to terms with, or see the completion of, that business. There is also a second way of applying that thought, but that will be touched on that when I discuss the two potential perspectives of this film.
As an overall experience, the movie felt very anti-climactic and was pretty bland for most of its run. The narratives, with themes that left enough room to dive into, felt simply like vehicles to showcase the dying art of stop-motion. The intricacies of the character builds and the attention to detail is what keeps you wanting to watch. Oh, and also the anticipation of an ending that ties everything together that you never actually get. In the first story, you can see the rug under Mabel's feet crumple as she walks across it. The face movements of the cat characters in Part III perfectly blended their feline nature with human-like expression. The medium itself has such a child-like fluidity to it that the random narratives could not derail from finding some level of enjoyment. While child-like, this is not a child's movie, as it carries heavy adult themes and, to be fair, does not carry enough surface-level entertainment to keep most children interested anyway.
As highlighted earlier, there are two perspectives from which this film could be experienced and I think most will watch these stories from the characters' perspective, since that is how it is presented by the directors. However, I think the argument can be made that the underlying themes and transformations of the house hold a second narrative that is experienced by the house. It is built to give hope, then it is torn apart and altered and left unfinished until it is picked up by the developer. The developer attempts to shape it into his own vision, however the house denies that vision, only for it to end up stripped back to its native self. It is then inherited by Rosa, who hopes to bring it back to its past glory, however, too much time has past for that to happen. Thus, the house seeks a new purpose, one that can take it back to being a beacon of hope, thus becoming a ship on which Rosa can sail away. For a subpar experience, the movie can foster a lot of conversation, however, audiences may not care enough to actually hold those discussions.
RATING: 🏠 🏠 🏠 / 5
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