House!
UK 1999
Reviewed by Edward Lawrenson
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
The Welsh valleys, the present. Linda works at La Scala, an ageing bingo hall owned by Mr Anzani. Faced with competition from the huge Mega Pleasure complex nearby, Anzani enters La Scala in the National Bonanzo, which promises a jackpot of 1 million.
La Scala's bingo caller Gavin takes a job with Mega Pleasure, despite his and Linda's closeness. Linda's aunt Beth demands her share of the house she co-owned with Linda's late mother, threatening to make Linda homeless. Linda, meanwhile, realises she can shape the outcome of bingo games by thinking of the numbers before they're called, but she can't play the game because she has been made the caller. She plans to use her powers to win the Bonanzo game and save La Scala, and is relying on Gavin to play for her. But after discovering her colleague Kay's attempt to seduce Gavin, Linda can only trust Beth to play the game for her; Beth refuses. Having lost his Mega Pleasure job, a contrite Gavin agrees to play the Bonanzo and to split any winnings with Linda.
Just before the Bonanzo game begins, Beth turns up. Linda unwittingly causes Beth to win, but Beth refuses to share the money. However, unbeknown to everyone, Mr Anzani bet a La Scala customer would pocket the jackpot. With the winnings, he turns La Scala into a restaurant.
Review
Facing the closure of his beloved bingo hall La Scala, the proprietor Mr Anzani says of the place: "I like to think we offer our customers more than bingo." So in addition to laying on regular games, Anzani provides his elderly clientele with cut-price gourmet Italian food and a bingo caller whose fizzy stage presence is worth the price of attendance alone (he bombards his audience with saucy jokes and does the odd bit of juggling).
Anzani's line in homely diversification - housed within the fading art-deco splendour of La Scala - is made to contrast with the anonymous functionality of his competitor, the vast bingo hall run by the Mega Pleasure chain. In this respect, House! follows a folksy, Ealing-comedy tradition of small-scale, ramshackle enterprises ranged against the soulless face of progress, usually represented by big corporations. In the film's most telling scene, Anzani dwells nostalgically on La Scala's past incarnation as a cinema, recalling Basil Dearden's charming 1957 film The Smallest Show on Earth (wherein a young couple attempt to save a picture house from greedy proprietors). But in his haste to convince us that La Scala is so much more than a mere bingo hall, there's also a tacit admission from debut director Julian Kemp of the inherent difficulty in turning bingo into dramatically satisfying cinema. Ultimately, bingo boils down to the random selection of numbered balls, profoundly uninvolving if you're not a player.
To avoid tying the fate of his characters to something so arbitrary, screenwriter Jason Sutton endows Linda (an engaging Kelly Macdonald) with the powers to predict which balls will be called. His reluctance to build to a climax that depends entirely on a game of chance is understandable. But Sutton ends up short-changing his audience even further by introducing this muddling, supernatural device.
As if to compensate for the implausibilities in the script, children's television drama director Kemp, working with Norwegian director of photography Kjell Vassdal (Junk Mail), directs with cartoonish pizzazz - whip-pans, jarring zooms and wide-angled close-ups abound. If at times this seems a little affected, like the more modish extremes of British cinema in the 60s (which House!'s jazzy opening titles put you in mind of), there are some genuinely witty visual flourishes (an airbag blows up in the face of a car driver milliseconds after he prangs his car).
Kemp's infectious energy almost manages to make bingo seem exciting: in the final 1 million jackpot game, he cuts between the tense, alert faces of the elderly bingo players and huge, semi-abstract close-ups of balls. Admittedly, the strange, hallucinatory quality of this scene might sap what little narrative tension the script is able to muster. But should Camelot executives be looking for someone to revamp their tired National Lottery show, Kemp would seem to be the ideal candidate.
Credits
- Director
- Julian Kemp
- Producer
- Michael Kelk
- Screenplay
- Jason Sutton
- Based on an idea by
- Eric Styles
- Director of Photography
- Kjell Vassdal
- Editor
- Jonathan Rudd
- Production Designer
- Kit Line
- Music Supervisors
- David Alldridge
- Craig Blake-Jones
- ©House Film Ltd
- Production Companies
- House Film Ltd
- Supported by the National Lottery through the Arts Council of England
- Executive Producers
- Christopher Figg
- Adam Sutcliffe
- Co-producer
- David Ball
- Production Co-ordinator
- Paul Hart-Wilden
- Production Manager
- Elaine Huss
- Location Manager
- Dyfed Williams
- Post-production Consultant
- Steve Harrow
- Assistant Directors
- Jon Williams
- Rhian Wyn-Jones
- Steffan Morris
- Script Supervisor
- Sally Jones
- 2nd Unit Cameraman
- Peter Thornton
- Digital Visual Effects
- The Film Factory
- Visual Effects Producer:
- Alan Church
- Visual Effects Compositions:
- Sally Clayton
- Dave Sewell
- CG Animator:
- Chris Petts
- Scannning/Recording:
- Zoe Cain
- Visual Effects Co-ordinator:
- Trevor Young
- Special Effects
- Mark Turner
- Graphic Designer
- Matthew Rudd
- Original Artwork
- Bob Rudd
- Art Director
- Tom Pearce
- Costume Designer
- Leila Ransley
- Make-up Designer
- Carole Williams
- Make-up Supervisor
- Scott Beswick
- Titles
- Film Factory
- Soundtrack
- "Binga Banga Bongo" by/performed by Terry Snyder; "E lucevan le stelle" from "Tosca" by Giacomo Puccini; "Nessun dorma" from "Turandot" by Giacomo Puccini; "The Stripper" by David Rose; "Pasta la vista" by/performed by Rupert Noble, Yellah!; "Strollin'" by Ralph Reader; excerpt from "Overture" to "Marriage of Figaro" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; "Fade to Grey" by Midge Ure, Billy Currie, Chris Payne, performed by Visage; "Madame Butterfly" by Giacomo Puccini; "Rip It Up" by Edwyn Collins, performed by Orange Juice; "M.G. Yn y Ty" by Meredith, Cravos, Ap Sion, performed by Tystion; "Also sprach Zarathrustra" by Richard Strauss, performed by Ray McVay; "Celebration" by Robert Earl Bell, Ronald Nathan Bell, George Melvin Bell, Robert Mickens, Claydes Smith, Dennis Ronald Thomas, Earl Eugene Toon Jr, Eumir Deodato, performed by Klaus Wunderlich; "Lune Vesuvio" performed by the Amigos
- Sound Supervisor
- John Wakeham
- Sound Recording
- Alan Jones
- Re-recording Mixers
- Ian Tapp
- Gareth Bull
- ADR
- Mixers:
- Clive A. Mitchinson
- Darran Clement
- Doc Kane
- Foley
- Mixer:
- Ken Somerville
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Rocky Taylor
- Cat Wrangler
- Martin Winfield
- Cast
- Kelly Macdonald
- Linda
- Gwenllian Davies
- Peggy
- Sue Hopkins
- Pam
- Eileen Edwards
- Mrs Collins
- Marlene Griffiths
- Enid
- Freddie Jones
- Mr Anzani
- Mossie Smith
- Kay
- Jason Hughes
- Gavin
- Bruce Forsyth
- himself
- Miriam Margolyes
- Beth
- William Thomas
- Clipboard
- Helen Griffin
- Marilyn
- Lynn Hunter
- Moira
- Julian Kemp
- postman
- Daniel Roberts
- Andy
- Keith Chegwin
- himself
- Sian Rivers
- Sandra
- Dean Davies
- food operative
- Bernard Plant
- unhappy punter
- Hywel Simons
- Tan
- Ifan Huw Dafydd
- father
- Stacey Ashton
- young Beth
- Rhodri Hugh
- hotel manager
- Rhidian Jones
- Timothy
- The Amigos
- band
- Giovanni Malcrino
- head chef
- Ceris Jones
- male diner
- Rhian Wyn-Jones
- female diner
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Pathé Distribution
- 8,078 feet
- 89 minutes 46 seconds
- Dolby
- In Colour