House of Games

viewed May 13, 2000 on video

For full information about this film, click here

Praise has been lauded over this film as one of the best of the '80s.  As much as there is to like over David Mamet's brilliant script, I can't get over my feelings that this film more closely resembles a play.  The un-cinematic use of the camera, the lighting, the highly mannered delivery of lines, are all borrowings of the Mamet's glory days on the stage.  These could be granted as stylistic conceits, but I find them distractingly unnatural.  I recently attended the Pulitzer Prize-winning play W;t, and found the strident histrionics of the cast very insensitive to the subtleties of everyday speech, much less the nuances of each character.  My judgment on the play, and theater in general, stands as thus: as much as others lauded the play for its content, I found myself certain that I had seen half a dozen movies at the Film Festival that were more meaningful and fulfilling.

But I also find myself lenient with House of Games, because so much of it is about play-acting and being mannered.  Mamet's scripts are an extraction of everyday speech, boiled down to its rhythmic intensity and exactness of purpose.  The story, about a renowned psychologist who is seduced by the elaborate mind games of a conman, is itself seductive, very smart and sexy.  But what's to distinguish it from what we would see in a play?  One can forgive the acting as mannerism, but the scenarios are stagy and stiff -- it simply is not a cinematic experience.  I've heard a similar complaint about The Big Kahuna, which was originally a play.

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