The House of the Spirits
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Actor: Antonio Banderas, Glenn Close, Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Winona RyderDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 133 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-05-22
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Live / Artisan
DVD Reviews of The House of the Spirits
DVD Review: Distasteful Formula of Love, Politics and the Supernatural
Summary: 2 Stars
"The House of the Spirits" documents three generations of author Isabel Allende's fictional Trueba family, opening with an extended panorama of the Chilean countryside. Narration begins with Winona Ryder speaking as her character Blanca, introducing us to the rich and prosperous del Valle family and more specifically to her clairvoyant mother Clara (Streep).
The magnitude of Clara's psychic abilities is revealed early on when she predicts the death of her elder sister Rosa (Polo). Esteban Trueba (Irons), the man intended to marry her, drowns his pain in the backbreaking restoration of his dilapidated hacienda Trés Mariez, neither speaking with or seeing the del Valles over the next ten years.
He and his elder sister Férula (Close) meet up with them again at the funeral of their mother, the family offering their condolences. It is here that we see that Clara has grown up, a demure, beautiful and highly reticent young woman. Upon seeing her for the first time in over a decade, Esteban is entranced and steps inside the del Valle home once more to ask for her hand. She unabashedly accepts and they are married within days, settling into his now thriving property.
Once colonized into his position of power and wealth with his new bride, Esteban becomes an intimidating patriarch - possessive and callous. Wanting to possess not only Clara's physical body but also her mystic psyche, he sees an obstacle in her affections for Férula and banishes her from his property, threatening to kill her if she returns. His menservants receive equally disdainful treatment, their disobedience to their "pátron" punishable by a severe lashing. Esteban is especially conscious of Pedro Tercero (Banderas), a fiery radical who rouses the peasants' anger regarding their denied civil liberties.
The straw that breaks the camel's back is Blanca's out-of-wedlock pregnancy and the fact that Pedro is the father of her unborn child, the product of a love that has intensified since their childhood. Pedro goes into hiding, Blanca gives birth to their daughter Alba and Esteban becomes a Senator for the Conservative party. Shortly after the People's Party wins the election, Chile's political mayhem comes to a head and Esteban's years of bad karma come back at him full swing.
The film misrepresents a great deal of what Allende has written in her novel ("La Casa De Los Espirítus" in her native language) and the biggest mistake was allowing director Bille August to pen the screenplay. People and events have been changed for convenience of the passage of time for which he and his producers could either not fulfill or didn't have the patience for. If the story's history had been traced correctly, the film would certainly have exceeded a three-hour time length. Instead of trying to keep a sense of purity to Allende's story, August has miserably chopped it in half by making the despicable Esteban García Trueba's son (instead of his grandson) and by having Blanca abducted and tortured by Chilean militants instead of her daughter Alba (which would've pushed the movie ahead another twenty years). Blanca's twin brothers Jaime and Nicolás are completely omitted, along with the mystic Mora Sisters, Amanda, Miguel and every one of Clara's numerous siblings aside from Rosa (Polo, who looks not the least bit maritime).
"The House of the Spirits" presents a highly inaccurate portrayal of the relationship between Férula and Esteban. In the book, they were persistently pitted against each other, each vying for Clara's affections. Férula is just as deviant as Esteban in her quest to win Clara's love but August choose to create an inclusive portrait of a helpless victim; he escalates Esteban's cruelty to an unreasonable level and as a result ruins the veritable nature of both characters, giving the audience more reason to despise Esteban and commiserate with Férula. He also fails to observe Blanca's enforced marriage to French Count Jean de Satigny and completely neglects Alba, Blanca's headstrong daughter.
All of the actors do an admirable job portraying their characters but with August's butchering of Allende's story and the wonderful character development that one is able to experience by reading her novel, a lot of personality and interest is lost in her three pivotal female characters (Clara, Blanca and Alba). Next to how we come to know them by reading the novel, their personalities seem a bit flaccid and obscured on screen. Winona Ryder adheres well to Blanca's aloof qualities but this is still a faulty casting choice. Although she is aesthetically pleasing, she lacks the emotional depth of her co-star and Streep pretty much drowns her out. Even though I have a profound love and respect for Meryl's work (Out of Africa, The Bridges of Madison County, One True Thing), she doesn't really belong here either; as the numinous Clara del Valle, she just doesn't quite fit the mold. It's a bit hard to swallow her youthful scenes as a 20-something bride (when she's actually over the hill at 44). Everyone else is pretty much in the appropriate age bracket and make-up helps to convincingly age them as the timeline stretches on.
It's hard to figure out what the heck Glenn Close is doing here. After smart turns as the manipulative Marquise de Merteuil (Dangerous Liaisons) and spurned lover Alex (Fatal Attraction), perhaps she needed a breather. If her character had been played correctly (instead of being made to look like her brother's helpless prey), her performance might've been more revered. Irons (M. Butterfly, Lolita) makes the best of what he has as the stone-cold Esteban, his icy stare and explosive intonation effectively rendered.
The real Latinos here are relegated to smaller roles, namely Antonio Banderas as the willful Pedro Tercero and Maria Conchita Alonso as Tránsito Soto. Appearing here in only his second American film, Banderas is more or less a pretty face to pair with Ryder and doesn't really make much of an impression. Good thing, too - he didn't really have the ability to flesh out a character until he starred in "The Mask of Zorro" five years later. Alonso is seamless as the sultry harlot Tránsito, her dark luminous eyes and voluptuous figure a perfect match to Allende's descriptions (we're missing the mesmerizing snake tattoo, however). Armin Mueller-Stahl and Vanessa Redgrave are wasted here, pushed to the background as del Valle heads Nívea and Severo and Jan Niklas as Jean de Satigny is barely given any screen time, much less a character background. The strangest casting choice is the eerie Vincent Gallo as Esteban García, his ghostly eyes (among other anomalous facial features) and restrained voice giving me the creeps.
Overall, this is an adaptation that disappoints on many levels. Had it been done as a low-budget independent film (with chapters - sorta like a mini-series) with unknown talents gone straight to video, it might've stood a chance. Distinguished actors and an art house director do not a great movie make.
Description of The House of the Spirits
The House of the Spirits is a generational tale of life among the ruling class in a South American country, as adapted from the Isabel Allende novel, but the political realities coexist very uneasily with the magical realism in this Bille August film. The star power alone (Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Winona Ryder, Antonio Banderas, Vanessa Redgrave, and Armin Mueller-Stahl) should have cranked it up a few notches, but that's not the case. Irons is appropriately cruel as the ambitious man who achieves wealth and makes everyone around him miserable and Streep is luminous, but it's slow and ponderous all the way. --Marshall FineBestsellers in DVD
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