Themes: Authority Figures, Death of a Parent, Orphans
Main Cast: Christine Lahti, Sarah Walker, Andrea Burchill, Anne Pitoniak, Barbara Reese, Bill Smille
Release Year: 1987
Country: US
Run Time: 117 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Housekeeping is the film in which Christine Lahti invites a guest into a living room half-submerged in water. This is hardly the oddest moment in this characteristically quirky Bill Forsyth film (his first American production). When their grandmother dies, Idaho pre-teens Sarah Walker and Andrea Burchill are watched over by their late mother's sister (played by Ms. Lahti). This strange young woman has throughout her life made unconventionality a life form. The girls are at first embarrassed by their loopy aunt, but when Burchill moves in with another family, Walker draws closer to the older woman. They hit the road, where Lahti has spent most of her life, and experience several picaresque episodes before the more sober-sided Burchill informs the authorities about their vagabond lifestyle. Threatened with losing custody of Walker, Lahti makes an effort to clean up her act, but by this time her niece has become just as endearingly unpredictable as she. Director Forsyth adapted his script from a novel by Marilynne Robinson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Scottish director Bill Forsythe's first effort for a major Hollywood studio was 1987's Housekeeping, a touching but resolutely unsentimental coming-of-age story boasting one of Christine Lahti's more under-appreciated performances. When Lahti's frizzy-haired, glassy-eyed Aunt Sylvie becomes the surrogate mother to two nieces, Ruth and Lucille, her dreamy philosophies and pack-rat behavior cause a split between the high-minded Lucille and the more pensive Ruth, played with an unforced grace by the young Sarah Walker. Rather than presenting Sylvie as the screen-tested stereotype of the lovable eccentric, Lahti and Forsythe make her increasingly more ambiguous as the film nears its conclusion, and the chasm between the two sisters' lifestyles takes on a bittersweet, almost tragic quality -- shadings which may have turned off audiences expecting more lighthearted fare. Lahti followed Housekeeping with a string of stellar roles in such films as Running on Empty; for Forsythe, the film would be the beginning of many post-production clashes with Hollywood studios. The haunting Pacific Northwest locales were shot by frequent Forsythe collaborator Michael Coulter. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Margot Pinvidic - Helen; Wayne Robson - Mr. French; Karen Austin - Mrs. Paterson; Georgie Collins - Grandmother; Betty Phillips - Mrs. Jardine; Enid Saunders - Etta; Dolores Drake - Mrs. Walker; Brian Linds - Deputy Sheriff; Sheila Paterson - Bernice; Betty Thomas - Stunt Player; Antony Holland - Mr. Wallace
Credit
John Willett - Art Director, Margery Simkin - Casting, Lynne Carrow - Casting, Mary-Jane Reyner - Costume Designer, Bill Forsyth - Director, Michael Ellis - Editor, Michael Gibbs - Composer (Music Score), Adrienne Atkinson - Production Designer, Michael Coulter - Cinematographer, Robert F. Colesberry - Producer, Jim Erickson - Set Designer, Ralph Parker - Sound/Sound Designer, Bill Forsyth - Screenwriter, Marilynne Robinson - Book Author
