Life As A House: Critic Reviews

House may suffer from excessive and unnecessary ornamentation, but its foundation -- Kline's performance -- is solid and strong.

The resolutions are too pat, the characters too predictable, the situations too contrived to sustain even the most desperate desires for family entertainment.

Kline never lets the soap-opera implications get the better of him.

Gauged strictly by the gag-factor, a more honest title might be Life as a Basement Apartment with Bad Light and a Dank Smell.

The movie gets us to feel about the characters, their relationships, and their circumstances, and that goes a long way towards allowing us to forgive the screenplays' occasional mis-steps and wrong turns.

Sadly, Christensen is the only jolt of excitement in this turgid soap opera.

A heart-warming, involving experience.

Uneven but moving story of reconcilliation.

Remember the movie Terms of Endearment, about a mother-daughter relationship, a terminal illness and a message about not taking people for granted?

Thank goodness there are actors capable of delivering performances better than the scripts they're given. Too bad there aren't more of them in this movie.

Life as a House is no cinematic masterpiece but it stays with you.

...the people who assembled Life as a House imagined it as a kind of American Beauty for the slightly more-literal-minded, for those who hated or felt baffled that film will likely like and apprehend this one.

A blatant tearjerker with the kind of shady characterization and plot development that give the genre a bad reputation.

Even the most perplexing problems are wrapped up neatly before the conclusion. In this "House," nobody goes home lonely: Even the local pimp gets some good, good lovin' before the final curtain.

Lloraran y sin embargo saldran de la sala con una sonrisa de esperanza y los deseos de construir su propia casa-existencia, ajustada a sus propios y mas intimos anhelos.

Retrato de la importancia de las relaciones humanas y el dolor que estas conllevan.

Achieves an intimacy rarely seen in a star-laden Hollywood drama.

As a drama it's insipid, maudlin junk that'll have you reaching for the sick-bucket rather than the Kleenex.

Glosses over some hard truths in order to resurrect the notion of cozy family bonding that is still a sacred tenet of our national mythology.

Rebuild your house, rebuild your home, rebuild your family, rebuild your life is the rather obvious message. If only it really were that simple.

While the script is a bit too neat and tidy in tying together various subplots, the strong acting and mostly assured direction elevate the film.

Let me just warn you - you will need a hanky. Who cares if it's a little too neatly done?

While it is both funny and tragic, the two themes don't always work together.

Its one redeeming quality is a stellar cast that struggles mightily to overcome a turgid screenplay -- unfortunately, they don't succeed.

This 'House' is no Oscar palace, but neither is it a movie-of-the-week tenement.