9 movies about houses— and Bar Quarters

A house is not a home.

In high school I became obsessed with this idea of making a film about an empty house, likely stemming from the fact that I moved around a lot as a kid and my parents were not homeowners until just before I left for college. Such spaces can be inhabited by more than just apparitions; beyond the haunted house template, they can be suffused with grief and overtaken by emotions and fears. I don’t know how my screenplay would have unfolded, but I’ve always kept note of movies that embrace a similar theme, treating the house not merely as a setting, but as a central force.

in this issue…

1. a pair movies that use the haunted house story as a premise to explore grief. both find ghosts more troubled than ghastly, attempting to overcome a sense of disorientation.

2. a list of movies to stream about houses, as homes—not necessarily about buildings or architectural spaces.

3. a restaurant review of a cafe/bar situated inside a design showroom

4. what to watch in NYC this weekend

Steven Soderbergh’s latest a haunted house movie, filmed from the POV of the ghost. The director himself wields the camera, shaky, tense, but not nauseating, following a family of four (played by Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan, Eddy Maday, and Callina Liang), who’ve moved in after a vaguely traumatic event. Situated in the ghost’s point of view I found myself protective, even sympathetic of the presence, a lonely thing that exacerbates other people’s unease rather than cause actual menace. At the same time I felt helpless, particularly when real, tangible horrors start to happen. As spectators, we’re immobilized and unable to do anything about our voyeuristic guilt, and it’s these kinds of viewer/camera questions that Soderberg’s movie elicits.

If it sounds too much like an elaborate MFA exercise to you, there are at least the performances. The quartet relatably fling their dialogue off each, isolate or attempt to comfort each other. I felt their anguish, and I was moved, maybe even more so because of David Koepp’s (screenwriter, Kimi, Jurassic Park) extremely sudden, somewhat vicious twist. In theaters via Neon, and on demand at some point. I also got to interview Liu and Liang for Vogue.

A house embodies the passage of time and the weight of history as the spirit of a recently deceased man lingers in his former home, observing the world around him. Rooney Mara plays the surviving girlfriend who famously grief-eats an entire vegan pie in one sitting. Casey Affleck plays the boyfriend and ghost, outfitted in a white sheet punched with holes something out of Charlie Brown or a rudimentary Halloween sketch. He is a passive and invisibly tethered presence, who cannot leave the house, but not an emotionless one. The slight tilting of the head at certain moments or crashing plates when a new family moves in indicate some sort of feeling. By the end, A Ghost Story plays like a cosmic fable of regret and the after life. It only vaguely outlines the personal and relational strife, which somehow makes it all the more powerful. It’s willfully blank so you can project your own feelings onto it.

David Lowery’s film premiered ~eight years ago at Sundance, which is wrapping up this weekend. Like most people on first watch I found it bracingly original and beautiful without sliding too much into twee. The patent gorgeousness of it is quite refreshing now, how Lowery chooses love and goodness over cynicism, and commits to beautiful images. As disciple of Malick, he ensures every frame is dreamy in the ways that filtered photos only wish they could be, all light and mist, shimmeringly tender and tactile. Rounded corners, too.

---

AQUARIUS

Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2016. A family home in Recife is a battleground between the aging protagonist and a greedy real estate company. A symbol of resistance, memory, and personal identity. The house —Filho’s real home, and subject of his other films—holds decades of life and history throughout decorate walls and artful clutter. Starring Sonia Braga, get acquainted if you don’t know her already.