Directed by: Maya Forbes & Wallace Wolodarsky
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Kevin Kline, Morena Baccarin, Rob Delaney, Beverly D'Angelo,
David Rasche, Rebecca Henderson, Molly Brown
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Such is the case with The Good House, a likable film which earns points strictly because no one is hacked to death in it. I've grown weary of thrillers that don't thrill and horror films where the victims are killed in increasingly gruesome, bloody ways. The movie landscape these days isn't providing us with much theatrical joy, so movies like The Good House stand out just by being simple family dramas.
Sigourney Weaver is Hildy Good, once the most successful realtor in the seaside town of Wendover (in I think Massachusetts), but whose alcoholism has only grown more alarming and has caused a dip in her business. She is losing top prospects to her former mentee turned rival and eighteen months ago, following a family intervention, Hildy reluctantly enters rehab and goes through the motions there. She isn't the one with the problem, of course, all of her family and friends are to blame for noticing her increasing alcohol use and daring to care about her.
Hildy was married once and has two grown daughters, but her husband (Rasche) left her for another man and remains a friend. Other small-town business is at play, including Hildy's therapist friend fooling around with a pretty patient who is new in town (Baccarin-from Deadpool) and Hildy's one-time flame Frank Gechell (Kline) possibly re-entering her love life. Frank is a gruff man with a perpetual stubble who owns many businesses but is referred to as "the contractor" or "the garbage man". He is probably the richest man in town, but doesn't look or act the part. Weaver and Kline starred together in Dave (1993) and The Ice Storm (1997) and just as in those films, they have a natural, unforced chemistry.
The Good House perks up when Weaver and Kline take the screen together. The rest of the time is spent with Hildy quietly breaking the fourth wall to introduce the players and deny her issues to us all and the soap opera which is Wendover. The final act involves not one, but two missing townspeople, and one of which is an autistic child. If you believe this story will end with the child dead in a forest somewhere, you are surely watching the wrong movie. The subplots are tied up, if not necessarily neatly and Weaver delivers a cry for help which serves as a suitable, powerful payoff to her story arc.
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