The House of Yes

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The House of Yes
Directed by Mark Waters
Produced by Robert Berger
Written by Wendy MacLeod (play)
Mark Waters
Starring Parker Posey,
Josh Hamilton,
Freddie Prinze Jr,
Tori Spelling
Music by Rolfe Kent
Distributed by Miramax Films
Release date(s) October 10, 1997 (USA)
Running time 85 min.
Language English
IMDb profile

The House of Yes is a 1997 film starring Parker Posey, Josh Hamilton, Geneviève Bujold, Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Tori Spelling. The movie is based on the play of the same name, which is written by Wendy MacLeod. It was produced by Robert Berger, and was released by Miramax Films on October 10, 1997, in the USA.

[edit] Plot

On Thanksgiving Day, 1983, NYC student Marty Pascal (Josh Hamilton) reluctantly brings his fiancée, Lesly (Tori Spelling), home to his family's Washington D.C. estate to meet them for the first time. Although Lesly is excited at the prospect of meeting her future in-laws, Marty quickly begins looking for excuses not to go home, ranging from general anxiety to a looming hurricane that threatens to leave them all housebound should it strike. Lesley eventually convinces Marty that she needs to meet his family.

It quickly becomes apparent to the viewer--but not to Lesley--that his family is intensely dysfunctional. His brother Anthony (Freddie Prinze, Jr.) is intensely introverted but insists upon engaging Lesly in conversations about sex. His sister (Parker Posey), recently released from an insane asylum, suffers from a variety of unnamed mental illnesses, one of which causes her to dress like and take on the mannerisms of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The siblings' mother (Geneviève Bujold) enables her delusions by denying that her daughter suffers from any illness and by reinforcing her insistence that she be referred to as "Jackie-O."

In the middle of the evening, the hurricane hits, stranding Marty and Lesley in the house until morning. In the middle of the night, Jackie-O sneaks into Lesley's room and cheerfully interrogates her about her love life with Marty, going so far as to ask for graphic details about their sexual escapades. Jackie-O then cryptically refers to a nearby former lover of Marty's, with whom he shared an intense affair in his youth. Lesley feels threatened by the potential rival, especially when Jackie-O informs her that she knows for a fact that the lover is contemplating attempting a reunion with Marty.

After leaving Lesley, Jackie-O approaches Marty, and the viewer becomes aware that Marty's lover was in fact Jackie-O, to whom he lost his virginity and with whom he had an intense sexual relationship when the two were young. Jackie-O first bullies and then subtly coerces Marty into playing their favorite childhood "game," a re-enactment of the JFK assassination, which involves Marty dressing up in a suit and then waving to a fictional crowd before Jackie-O aims a revolver at his head and fires - a game that resulted in the initial rift between Marty and his family when Jackie-O decided to play it with live rounds and shot Marty in the abdomen. Jackie-O and Marty play the game, after which she mounts him and the two have sex. Lesley walks in on the scene and, horrified, locks herself in her bedroom. She is visited by Anthony, who, taking advantage of her vulnerable state, convinces her that he is an insecure virgin. Lesley has sex with Anthony, after which she learns that he is in fact an experienced womanizer who convinces naive girls that he is a virgin so that they'll have sex with him.

In the morning, Lesley confronts the family about the events of the night before. Jackie-O announces that she intends on keeping Marty a prisoner in the home so that he can be her sex slave; during the course of Jackie-O's speech, she reveals that the siblings' mother murdered their father on the day of the JFK assassination so that their lives could mirror that of the "perfect" Kennedys. Marty tries to reason with his sister, claiming that their father simply chose the day of Kennedy's death to abandon them, and that he may still be alive somewhere. Ultimately, Jackie-O pulls a loaded gun on Lesley, and threatens to murder her if Marty won't play "JFK" with her. Marty agrees, sits down in a chair, and waves; Jackie-O aims the gun at his head and blows his brains out, prompting Lesley to run screaming from the home.

In an epilogue, the viewer sees a clip from Pascal family home movies, in which a teenage Jackie-O, dressed in a pink suit, gives a tour of the Pascal home while Marty videotapes her. At the end of the tape, Marty initiates the first incestuous sexual encounter between the siblings, demonstrating that he was ultimately responsible for Jackie-O's mental state and her obsession with him.

[edit] Cast

[edit] External links

Languages