You may never figure out exactly what big point Home is trying to make, but you won't soon forget its imagery and its exquisite weirdness. What an unusual premise, what great performances, and what unpredictability. Once again, French cinema trumps anything that mainstream Hollywood typically coughs up.
Somewhere in the rural center of France, a family of five lives in the midst of sweeping fields bifurcated by an unused four-lane highway. Although they know the road was used as recently as ten years ago, they don't worry that it will be reactivated. In fact, they've colonize it, using it for street hockey games and barbecues. Dad Michel (Olivier Gourmet) crosses it each morning to get to his car while his wife Marthe (the great Isabelle Huppert) tends to the house and takes care of young Julien (Kacey Mottet Klein) and Marion (Madeleine Budd), while sullen older sister Judith (Adelaide Leroux) spends most of her time sunbathing in the yard. It's a slightly weird setup, but the family obviously enjoys their solitude.
And then...the highway reopens, and they quickly become a family on the verge of a nervous breakdown. With traffic roaring by just a few feet from the kitchen window, they're cut off from their friends, their school, and their car, resorting to trekking through a wet culvert to get to the other side. So why don't they just pack up and leave? This is a beautifully crafted mystery the film addresses only obliquely. Why did they come here in the first place, and why is the increasingly fragile Marthe hell-bent on staying, shrieking that she can't bear to start over again somewhere else, whatever that means? Judith seems unperturbed, choosing to continue sunbathing in her bikini to attract the appreciate honks of passing truckers. Marion, on the other hand, becomes obsessed with counting the traffic and running the numbers on possible carbon monoxide poisoning. Julien just misses his friends and is highly sensitive to the fact that both his parents are starting to lose it.
Something will have to change, but the film never telegraphs anything; we have no idea how this impossible situation will be resolved, and the decisions Michel and Marthe make are astonishing. How great to have Gourmet and Huppert, two of France's A-team of actors, in these roles. Huppert, especially, is mesmerizing. You can almost see her skull starting to crack as she steadily loses her marbles.
Home is unlike anything you've seen, a memorable and fascinating take on how both external and internal forces can pull a family apart. If there were a sign on this highway, it would say "Caution! Danger Ahead!"
Somewhere in the rural center of France, a family of five lives in the midst of sweeping fields bifurcated by an unused four-lane highway. Although they know the road was used as recently as ten years ago, they don't worry that it will be reactivated. In fact, they've colonize it, using it for street hockey games and barbecues. Dad Michel (Olivier Gourmet) crosses it each morning to get to his car while his wife Marthe (the great Isabelle Huppert) tends to the house and takes care of young Julien (Kacey Mottet Klein) and Marion (Madeleine Budd), while sullen older sister Judith (Adelaide Leroux) spends most of her time sunbathing in the yard. It's a slightly weird setup, but the family obviously enjoys their solitude.
And then...the highway reopens, and they quickly become a family on the verge of a nervous breakdown. With traffic roaring by just a few feet from the kitchen window, they're cut off from their friends, their school, and their car, resorting to trekking through a wet culvert to get to the other side. So why don't they just pack up and leave? This is a beautifully crafted mystery the film addresses only obliquely. Why did they come here in the first place, and why is the increasingly fragile Marthe hell-bent on staying, shrieking that she can't bear to start over again somewhere else, whatever that means? Judith seems unperturbed, choosing to continue sunbathing in her bikini to attract the appreciate honks of passing truckers. Marion, on the other hand, becomes obsessed with counting the traffic and running the numbers on possible carbon monoxide poisoning. Julien just misses his friends and is highly sensitive to the fact that both his parents are starting to lose it.
Something will have to change, but the film never telegraphs anything; we have no idea how this impossible situation will be resolved, and the decisions Michel and Marthe make are astonishing. How great to have Gourmet and Huppert, two of France's A-team of actors, in these roles. Huppert, especially, is mesmerizing. You can almost see her skull starting to crack as she steadily loses her marbles.
Home is unlike anything you've seen, a memorable and fascinating take on how both external and internal forces can pull a family apart. If there were a sign on this highway, it would say "Caution! Danger Ahead!"
