ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, August 17, 1996 TAG: 9608190021
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: MOVIE REVIEW
SOURCE: KATHERINE REED STAFF WRITER
For the first 30 minutes, the new "kids" movie, "House Arrest," is about a young boy taking desperate measures to keep his parents from splitting up.
It's an interesting enough movie idea for the '90s, that a child lucky enough to have two parents living in one house would lock them in the basement together to get them to talk to each other - and stay together.
But then the cynics behind this movie apparently rubbed their two brain cells together and decided to go for the "Home Alone" crowd, that huge chunk of the American movie-going public that laughs at people being mean to each other. Especially when it's kids being mean to their parents.
So the script takes a turn away from the pleasantly subversive and toward the unpleasantly tedious and throws a character into the story - a long-haired (gasp!) teen-ager - who locks up a bunch of other parents, too. These parents aren't splitting up; their marriages are bad. Or they themselves are bad. One of them, a young, single mother (Jennifer Tilly), troubles her daughter by not being enough, uh, Mom-like.
If, in this mess, you can keep your eye trained on what the point of all this was supposed to be in the first place, congratulate yourself. Because the filmmakers have not made it easy.
And to make matters worse, the movie's kid hero, Grover, is played by a young actor named Kyle Howard, whose real parents ought to be locked up for letting him have so many acting lessons. Reference, please, the super-natural performances of Michelle Trachtenberg as "Harriet the Spy" and Mara Wilson as "Matilda."
"House Arrest" is one of those "what-if" kind of movie disappointments - as in, what if it had stayed on course? What if it had really been a movie about a kid who locks his parents in the basement and forces them to talk to each other (and maybe even to him and his little sister) about the marriage. And, consequently, dealt honestly with the devastation of divorce?
Apparently, it's a subject some people still want to keep under lock and key.
House Arrest **
A Rysher Entertainment release, showing at Salem Valley 8 and Crossroad Cinema USA. Rated PG for some profanity. 108 minutes.|
** (PG) for some profanity, a Rysher Entertainment release, showing at Salem Valley 8 and Crossroad Cinema USA, 108 minutes.
LENGTH: Short : 50 linesby CNB