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The House of the Spirits
Upon knowing that his daughter, Blanca, has fallen in love with Pedro, a young courageous and revolutionary guy fights for the workers' rights, Esteban, a young ambitious man who begins his life from nothing and works hard, till he manages to be a patriarch, struggles against saving his position, by breaking up his daughter's relationship with Pedro.
1943
16 November 1945, Harlingen, Texas, USA
29 October 1971, Winona, Minnesota, USA
16 January 1952, Lisbon, Portugal
30 January 1937, Greenwich, London, England, UK
19 March 1947, Greenwich, Connecticut, USA
10 August 1960, Málaga, Málaga, Andalucía, Spain
May 20, 2013
It's also a wretched paradox: a big budget, star-driven art film whose very elements subvert its ambitions and turn it into the thing it least wants to be -- a listless '50s-style Hollywood melodrama.
May 20, 2013
Similar epics are made with more conviction and less pretension on daytime TV.
May 20, 2013
The House of the Spirits is like Gone With the Wind with the fun and excitement replaced by lofty. All that's left is the wind.
May 20, 2013
The story, from the best-selling novel by Isabel Allende, is purely incidental to the unintentionally hysterical stylings of this potential camp cult film. It's truly awful, and one shouldn't miss it for the world.
May 20, 2013
Inert from its opening moments to its too-long-delayed close, this lackluster production is an example of international filmmaking at its least attractive, and a misstep in the careers of pretty much everyone involved.
May 20, 2013
The flaws aren't fatal. The beauty and brilliance that might have been, don't preclude the quality and bravery that exist on the screen.
May 20, 2013
It's always painful when a brilliant book becomes a bust of a movie.
May 20, 2013
How can an accomplished director take a great novel, the best actors working and the finest technicians available and make a film so... bland? It's a puzzlement.
May 20, 2013
This isn't just a bad movie -- it's hugely, grandiosely, pompously bad.
May 20, 2013
Given the talents involved, the film's hesitations in style and consistent failure to really move must be counted as a major disappointment.
May 20, 2013
The thing works in its goofy way, mainly because Bille August is a man of apparently dauntless conviction. He has written and directed every scene with serene authority.
May 20, 2013
The film version stresses political intrigue and revolutionary violence at The expense of the anything-goes dreaminess that gives the book its most memorable moments. A stellar cast doesn't help much.
