情系屋檐下 Life as a House review by ROD ARMSTRONG

It seems that every autumn brings another pandering tearjerker to the multiplex. Last year, it was the shameless Pay It Forward; this year it's the slightly better, but no less abashed Life as a House. While the former suggested that everyone's life could attain a happier plane through random acts of kindness, this film suggests that familial joy results from building a domicile together. What saves the film from its ridiculous conceit and complete bathos is a handful of good performances and a couple of genuinely touching moments.
Life's focal character is Sam (Hayden Christensen), the latest in a long line of unhappy, Goth-dressing teens. In the opening, the boy is pulling a Michael Hutchence — trousers around the knees, rope around the neck, orgasm-enhancing drugs at hand. When the closet rod he's hanging from comes crashing down and his mother Robin (Kristin Scott Thomas) runs up the stairs to investigate, parent and child are both forced to recognize that serious post-puberty problems are present. The boy's request of "Why don't you just die and leave me alone?" only offers further proof.

Enter Sam's father and Robin's ex-husband, George (Kevin Kline). Life kind of stacks the deck against this poor guy. He's been fired from his job as an architect, told he has four months to live, and currently resides solo in an ocean-overlooking shack on the cul-de-sac of a tony Los Angeles block. With 17 weeks of free time and a sudden desire to remodel, he unearths the original house plans for the site and recruits his extremely unwilling son to help.

No prizes go to readers who can figure out what happens next, because director Irwin Winkler's film holds few surprises and many coincidences. Exhibit A: Alyssa (Jena Malone), the girl Sam has a crush on, happens to live next door to George. Exhibit B: Robin, unhappily remarried to a cold fish named Peter (Jamey Sheridan), starts coming around the construction site and finds herself falling for her ex again. Exhibit C: Every now and then, Kline pops a pill or keels over to remind viewers that he's dying.

In addition to the predictability problems, Life suffers from poor editing and a reluctance to portray the realities of construction. The opening half-hour rushes through its plot points like a bullet train in order to make room for endless barn-raising sequences of father/son bonding. Before one can take a breath, Sam is no longer dressed in black, his facial piercings and blue hair are gone, the shack is completely cleared from the site, and half a mansion is in its place. Winkler clearly wants to get to the maudlin moments of Mark Andrus' script, but he shouldn't have been in such a rush.

Though Kline does everything but demand an Oscar nomination in his mugging portrayal, the other actors are pleasant to watch. Mary Steenburgen has a nice turn as Alyssa's -starved mom and Scott Thomas is always easy on the eyes. Christensen, soon to be seen in Star Wars Episode II, modulates his role so nicely that one almost falls for his character's emotional about-face. He even carries off trite lines such as "I like how it feels not to feel." Speaking of feelings, there are some touching emotional moments in the film, despite the heavy hands of Winkler and Andrus. Joni Mitchell's wistful "Both Sides, Now" is used to terrific effect late in the film, and a plot twist regarding who will eventually live in the completed house also has its emotional weight.

Critics and moviegoers immune to sap will adore Life as a House. "It's a real film about real people," they will claim. Arguments about its numerous false moments will fall on deaf ears. But that's OK — one person's house of cards is another's dream palace.

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