IN THE HOUSE

Francois Ozon's delightful, delicious new comedy "In the House" is a wonderfully clever and very funny treatise on the written word delivered in very cinematic terms, on the thin line between fact and fiction, truth and lies and the individual's need for attention. The central characters are two misplaced males destined, perhaps, to be together and who find each other almost by accident. Germain is a middle-aged (and bitterly cynical) schoolteacher, (a terrific Fabrice Luchini), who one day finds that an essay handed in by handsome young loner student Claude, (Ernst Umhauer, excellent), has all the promise of a blossoming literary talent simply because it deals, in a well-written way, of course, in 'truths', (it describes Claude's infatuation with a fellow student and his family and what might go on 'dans la maison' in which they live), and the essay ends 'to be continued'.

He shows the essay to his wife, (a lovely performance from Kristin Scott Thomas), and, on the one hand, egged on by her and, on the other, despite her misgivings he takes Claude under his wing, so to speak, encouraging him to produce more 'to be continued' episodes on what goes on behind the walls of his friend's family home. As someone says, it can only end badly.


The brilliance of Ozon's conceit is that what we see and what we hear aren't always the same. Sometimes if Germain thinks 'a factual' description of events is not worthy of his talents, Claude will change it in the next scene and as Claude's 'literary career' progresses some of the things he writes has no basis in fact whatsoever so that we, too, are left wondering what's real and what isn't.
It is, of course, a hugely sophisticated comedy where a subplot involving Germain's wife's preoccupation with the art gallery she runs is used to counter-balance Germain's increasing preoccupation with Claude, a preoccupation his wife thinks may even have a sexual basis. Without giving anything away, the film itself ends with the words 'to be continued'; if only ...