Housekeeping
After Bill Forsyth made “Local Hero”, he went on to make “Housekeeping”,
a movie I never heard of before it came up on the List. I am apparently not
alone. Turned out that the producer got fired from Columbia and the studio, as
a result, gave the movie minimal attention. It has therefore flown under the
radar of literally everybody and that is truly a shame. This is a little gem.
Somewhere in the Northwest (Seattle?) in, presumably, the
1940’ies, a young mother, Helen (Margot Pinvidic), set off to Fingerbone, Idaho,
to put off her two daughters, Ruth and Lucille, at her mother’s house before she
drives off a cliff and into the lake.
Years later, sometime in the fifties, the grandmother dies
and the two girls, being teenagers, are without a guardian. Two aunts come by
temporarily, but flee back to where they came from when Helen’s sister, Sylvie
(Christine Lahti) arrive. Sylvie is... eccentric. She is a drifter, who never
stays long in any one place. She is married but seem to hardly remember her husband.
She does all these odd things that are more whims than anything. To the girls
she acts more like a friend than a parent and it is often them who must keep
track of her than the other way round.
To begin with Lucille (Andrea Burchill) and Ruth (Sara
Walker) are so alike they appear to be twins and they seem to speak with one
voice. The presence of Sylvie, though, creates a rift between them. Lucille
sees Sylvie as a problem. Lucille wants to fit in with all the other townsfolk
and wants to break out of the bubble of weirdness she thinks Sylvie is creating.
Eventually she moves out of the house, to stay with one of her teachers. Ruth
on the other hand feels like an outcast herself with more of a kinship to
Sylvie. She likes the isolation and fears other people. To her, being totally
accepted by Sylvie is a door opening to a world where she does not have to fit
in in a normal sense. The rift escalates to the point where Lucille is setting
the town authorities on Sylvie to “save” Ruth.
This is an innocent looking movie with a surprisingly lot
going on, most of which in subtle ways that are unobtrusive until you notice
them. One of the curious details is the almost complete lack of men in the
movie. They are simply... absent. This forces the women to make their own
decisions and in a patriarchal society such as rural villages in the fifties,
this tastes like freedom. What then do you do with that freedom? Helen used it
to kill herself. Sylvie uses it to do whatever comes to her mind, but generally
avoid responsibility. Their mother ran her home as if her husband was there. He
just wasn’t. Lucille and Ruth are coming of age, and they are in a position,
perhaps more than their contemporaries, where they must decide what they want
to do. Lucille’s choice is to join the conventional world with all the comforts
of fitting in, while Ruth’s choice is to stay outside conventional society. Not
because she insists on being independent or aloof, but out of a combination of
fear of how the world look at her and duty to Sylvie whom she genuinely like.
Of course this is a coming-of-age story, but it neither involves knocking
somebody over, having sex or winning a competition. It is simply about making
your life choice.
Even Sylvie is going through, belatedly, a coming-of-age of
sorts. While she made the life choice a long time ago to be free, learning to
take responsibility for somebody is her growing up.
There is a quiet tone to the movie that I found extremely
soothing. Screaming and shouting is at a minimum and instead I get to know
these people to an extend rarely seen in Hollywood productions. Sara Walker and
Andrea Buchill were both amateur actors and I cannot find that they did
anything since and that is such a shame. They are naturals and are very
convincing. I felt so much sympathy for Ruth and while that may be intended, the
fact that it comes through so powerfully, speaks to her credit.
Obviously, with no studio support, the movie tanked upon
release, but in the years since it has won recognition and that is well deserved.
I would never have found this movie if not for the List and I am very happy to
have watched it. Highly recommended.
