House of Yes

Bomb Rating: 

The problem with this whole concept is that there's nothing cinematic about it. Another minor setback: There's no story.

If plays were meant to be films, they would never be plays in the first place. Typically, some smart guy has a revelation while he's sitting in some seedy New York theater that if he can get a camera and do an adaptation of the play he's watching, he'll become famous, or at least respected, or at least get the ticket-taker to go on a date. This is because he's an egotistic wanker, which is why he attends plays in the first place.

Director Mark Waters probably had one of these ideas run through his brain while watching Wendy MacLeod's play, "The House of Yes," a story about a dysfunctional rich family. Marty Pascal (Josh Hamilton) brings his fiancé (Tori Spelling) home to meet the family -- and what a weird one it is. There's Jackie-O (Parker Posey), fresh out of the mental hospital, little brother Anthony (Freddie Prinze, Jr.) and an eccentric momma (Genevieve Bujold).

The problem with this whole concept is that there's nothing cinematic about it. Another minor setback: There's no story. What may work as a play does not work as a film. Wacko characters stand around and talk about their wacko lives. For me, the most suspenseful thing about the movie was watching Tori Spelling and wondering whether some artificial body part might be ejected if she moved in any one direction too quickly.

If only somebody had just said "no" to "The House of Yes."