Susan Granger’s review of “LIFE AS A HOUSE” (New Line Cinema)
Take one dying man, add his drug-addicted son and dysfunctional family, toss in a dastardly neighbor, mix well with pathos and you have this old-fashioned inspirational drama that’s guaranteed to be a two-hankie weeper. Kevin Kline plays a grizzled, middle-aged architect who discovers he has terminal cancer the same day he’s fired from his job. Determined to make his last few months into an opportunity to count for something, he vows to tear down the decrepit seaside shack he’s been living in and build his dream house with his own hands and those of his estranged, rebellious teenage son, making the construction of the house into a metaphor for constructing a meaningful life. Within that syrupy, trite, predictable framework, screenwriter Mark Andrus (“As Good As It Gets”) and director Irwin Winkler concoct an irreverent, character-driven black comedy/melodrama, superbly photographed by Vilmos Zsigmond and scored with schmaltz by Mark Isham. In a compelling, Oscar-caliber performance, Kevin Kline is as hilarious as he is heart-breaking, a master of comedic and poignant nuance. And as the smoking, sniffing, snorting Goth son who engages an interlude of homosexual prostitution, Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker in the upcoming “Star Wars: Episode II”) is terrific, falling for Jena Malone, the sensible, nubile daughter of his father’s sex-starved neighbor Mary Steenburgen, while Kristin Scott-Thomas is subtle and touching as Kline’s wistful, conflicted ex-wife. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Life as a House” is an ephemeral 8. It’s emotionally manipulative but astonishingly effective, a heart-grabber that lifts the spirit.
