House of D

It's late but I want to get this down before my train of thought derails...

I only read one review of this movie but it was, frankly, scathing and made me wonder if I really wanted to see it after all. Years ago when I first discovered David Duchovny I rented "Playing God" on videocassette and was really disappointed. I didn't want to be disappointed a second time, and I wasn't.

To rebut some of A.O. Scott's criticisms, I didn't find the movie wholly unbelievable. Some stuff might have strained my willing suspension of disbelief, but I guess I was more willing to suspend it than Scott was. (I want to believe... nope, let's not go there.) I thought that Robin Williams' portrayal of Pappas was sensitively done, and the scenes between the two young people were touching. I did think the opening scene in Paris was a little clunky, but I didn't think that Tom Warshaw was particularly narcissistic.

The strength of this movie is in the strength of the relationship between Tommy and Pappas. I cried when Tommy said goodbye to Pappas, and I cried again when they were reunited. I projected my love for my own son onto Tommy and I hope with all my heart that my boy never has to visit those dark places. He is just a child, and even when he's 40, he'll still be my child. Such were my feelings for Tommy.

If I found any character in the movie narcissistic it was Katherine Warshaw. She was so out of touch with her son's life that I felt no sense at all of any kind of connection between her and Tommy, apart from clowning around to plaster over her gaping problems . Granted, I don't know anything about depression. Does it make you prickly, quarrelsome, lethargic, euphoric and cliched all at once? Narcissism in the depths of depression is inevitable. Maybe "caricature" is more to the point. Something was missing there. (I think it might have been character development.) I also found it a little hard to accept that a nurse would seem to know nothing about ODing on sedatives, but her son seemed to know more than she did. So despite the fact that I wanted to feel sympathy for her, I didn't. I did feel sympathy for Tommy, trying to love her.

And Lady/Bernadette? Was she believable? As a plot device, maybe not, but she was likable. And it is just a movie, and it was full of tender emotions and nostalgic memories and very, very Duchovnyesque humor (which apart from the pretty juvenile sex jokes is almost always wonderful) and it is overall quite a good first movie. I hope he'll make another.