The House (2022 Film)
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''The House'' is a 2022 British
animation Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...
stop-motion animated
anthology film An anthology film (also known as an omnibus film, package film, or portmanteau film) is a single film consisting of several shorter films, each complete in itself and distinguished from the other, though frequently tied together by a single theme ...
written by
Enda Walsh Enda Walsh (born 1967) is an Irish playwright. Biography Enda Walsh was born in Kilbarrack, North Dublin on February 7, 1967. His father ran a furniture shop and his mother had been an actress. He is the second youngest of six children. Wal ...
and telling different stories forming a
trilogy A trilogy is a set of three works of art that are connected and can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, and video games, and are less common in other art forms. Three-part wor ...
spanning different worlds and characters but set inside the same house. Each story deals with themes of madness, wealth, and the pursuit of true happiness. Originally announced as a television miniseries, it became an
anthology film An anthology film (also known as an omnibus film, package film, or portmanteau film) is a single film consisting of several shorter films, each complete in itself and distinguished from the other, though frequently tied together by a single theme ...
. Produced for
Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
by
Nexus Studios Nexus Studios is an animation, film and interactive studio based in London and LA. It was founded in 2000 by Charlotte Bavasso and Christopher O'Reilly. Creating a range of both handcrafted and high-tech work, Nexus Studios has a team of product ...
in London, it tells three stories respectively directed by the duo of Emma de Swaef and Marc James Roels,
Niki Lindroth von Bahr Niki Lindroth von Bahr (born 14 February 1984, Stockholm) is a Swedish director and animator based in Stockholm, Sweden. Biography von Bahr studied animation at the Royal Institute of Art. She received her master's degree in fine art in 20 ...
, and
Paloma Baeza Paloma Baeza (born 1 May 1975) is a British actress and director of English and Mexican heritage. Her 2017 film ''Poles Apart'' won the BAFTA for best animated short film in 2018. Biography Baeza was born in London and spent her childhood in Me ...
in their
directorial debuts This is a list of film directorial debuts in chronological order. The films and dates referred to are a director's first commercial cinematic release. Many film makers have directed works which were not commercially released, for example early work ...
; the directors are credited with the story of their respective segments, with Johannes Nyholm as co-writer for the second.


Plot

I – And heard within, a lie is spun

A young girl named Mabel lives with her father Raymond, mother Penny, and newborn sister Isobel in relative poverty. After a visit from wealthy, condescending relatives, Raymond wanders drunk into the forest at night and encounters the mysterious architect Mr. Van Schoonbeek. The following morning, Van Schoonbeek’s employee Mr. Thomas visits the family and convinces Raymond and Penny to accept Van Schoonbeek's offer to move into a new luxurious house built for them at no charge. After the family moves in, Mabel notices several peculiar things about the house and the workers constantly refitting it, but her parents are mesmerized by the house and its luxuries. Raymond becomes increasingly obsessed with the house's fireplace, which he constantly fails to light up, while Penny spends more and more time sewing drapes. Mabel becomes further put off when her parents don attire designed by Van Schoonbeek which resembles the furniture they adore (a chair and curtains). Exploring the house one night, Mabel and Isobel find themselves lost in the maze it has become, eventually stumbling upon Thomas. Drunk and ashamed, Thomas confesses that he is an actor following a script provided by Van Schoonbeek. Meanwhile, Raymond is finally able to light a fire by burning the family's old possessions, including his father’s chair and Mabel's dollhouse. When the sisters finally reunite with their parents, they find Raymond and Penny turned into furniture—Raymond into a chair and Penny into curtains. As the fire expands, the parents urge their daughters to escape. Using the curtains to climb out a window while their parents burn alive, Mabel and Isobel escape before watching the smoking house from a distance as the sun rises.


II – Then lost is truth that can't be won

The story is set in a world populated by anthropomorphic rats, and the house is now settled in a developed city street and about to go up for sale. The developer renovating the house recently laid off his entire construction crew to reduce costs and must do all the work himself. Discovering the house has been infested by fur beetles and
larvae A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. The ...
, he uses copious amounts of boric acid to get rid of them, to no avail. On the day of the viewing, the guests are unimpressed by the house, but a strangely proportioned couple remains, expressing a strong interest in buying the house. Unwilling to risk the sale, the developer lets them stay the night. Over the next few days, the odd couple remain firmly settled in the house, the bugs return in force, and the bank keeps demanding repayment of the developer's business loan. The developer decides to stop indulging the couple, only for many members of their family to show up wanting to enter the house. At his wit's end, the developer tries to use the boric acid on the couple, but he inhales a mouthful and faints. He survives but is reduced to a catatonic state. The couple picks the developer up from the hospital and brings him home, where their family welcomes him back, many of them now sporting additional limbs. The final scene shows the family ravaging the inside of the house—climbing up the walls and chewing through everything. The developer, having regressed to animal-like intelligence, briefly emerges from the remains of the oven to eat garbage before retreating underground.


III – Listen again and seek the sun

In a world that suffered an apocalyptic flood and is populated by anthropomorphic cats, the house is surrounded by water which keeps rising. Rosa, the landlord who cherishes the memories of her days growing up in the house, dreams of restoring it to its former glory. However, she struggles financially; and her only tenants, fisherman Elias and hippie Jen, do not pay rent despite her insistence; she consistently ignores their attempts to address the rising water. When Jen's "spirit partner" Cosmos (a craftsman) arrives to visit, Rosa enlists him to work on the house; but is infuriated to find out he has instead been tearing up the house's floorboards to build a boat for Elias. As Cosmos continues to refit the house against Rosa's wishes, Rosa argues with Elias; hurt that he wishes to leave, while he accuses her of being afraid to do the same. He later departs on the makeshift boat. As the water and mist continue to seep into the house and Jen prepares to leave the house with Cosmos, she puts Rosa into a dream-like trance, in which Rosa sees the house destroyed and her friends abandoning her. Emerging from the vision, she sees Jen and Cosmos sailing away, calling for her to join them; but the boat is too far away. Remembering a large lever Cosmos had built, she pushes it, transforming the house into a seaworthy vessel. Encouraged by Jen, Cosmos, and a returning Elias, Rosa takes control of the house ship, escaping as the floods destroy the surrounding foundations, and the four sail out into the ocean.


Voice cast

; I – And heard within, a lie is spun *
Mia Goth Mia Gypsy Mello da Silva Goth (born 25 October 1993) is an English actress and model of Brazilian mother and Canadian father. She is best known for her work in the ongoing horror film franchise ''X'' (2022–present). Following a brief stint ...
as Mabel *
Claudie Blakley Claudie Blakley (born 4 January 1974) is an English actress. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. In 1998, she won the Ian Charleson Award for her performance in ''The Seagull'' at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds. She is ...
as Penelope *
Matthew Goode Matthew William Goode (born 3 April 1978) is a British actor. Goode made his screen debut in 2002 with American Broadcasting Company, ABC's TV film feature ''Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister#Adaptation, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister''. His ...
as Raymond *
Mark Heap Mark Heap (born 13 May 1957) is an English actor and comedian. He is known for his roles in television comedies, including, ''Brass Eye'', ''Big Train'', ''Spaced'', ''Jam (TV series), Jam'', ''Green Wing'', ''Friday Night Dinner'', ''Upstart ...
as Mr. Thomas *
Miranda Richardson Miranda Jane Richardson (born 3 March 1958) is an English actress. She made her film debut playing Ruth Ellis in '' Dance with a Stranger'' (1985) and went on to receive Academy Award nominations for ''Damage'' (1992) and ''Tom & Viv'' (1994). ...
as Aunt Clarice *
Josh McGuire Joshua McGuire (born 2 March 1990) is a professional rugby league footballer who plays as a and for the Warrington Wolves in the Betfred Super League. He has played for Samoa and Australia at international level. He previously played for th ...
as Uncle Georgie *
Stephanie Cole Patricia Stephanie Cole (born 5 October 1941) is an English stage, television, radio and film actress, known for high-profile roles in shows such as '' Tenko'' (1981–1985), ''Open All Hours'' (1982–1985), ''A Bit of a Do'' (1989), '' Waiti ...
as Great Aunt Eleanor *
Barney Pilling Barney Pilling is a British television and film editor. Some of Pilling's TV projects include '' Spooks'', ''Life on Mars'', ''No Angels'', '' Hotel Babylon'' and '' As If''. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Film Editing for the 2 ...
as Mr. Van Schoonbeek ; II – Then lost is truth that can't be won *
Jarvis Cocker Jarvis Branson Cocker (born 19 September 1963) is an English musician and radio presenter. As the founder, frontman, lyricist and only consistent member of the band Pulp, he became a figurehead of the Britpop genre of the mid-1990s. Following P ...
as the Developer *
Yvonne Lombard Yvonne Lombard (born 28 May 1929) is a Swedish actress. Born in Stockholm, Lombard studied at the Royal Dramatic Theatre ("Dramaten") there, where she trained between 1948 and 1951 with the likes of Max von Sydow and Ingrid Thulin. She has perfor ...
as the Odd Wife *
Sven Wollter Sven Justus Fredrik Wollter (11 January 1934 – 10 November 2020) was a Swedish actor, writer, and political activist. Wollter is one of the most renowned Swedish actors, he was awarded Best Swedish actor twice. In his native country, he becam ...
as the Odd Husband. This was Wollter’s final role prior to his death. *
Bimini Bon-Boulash Bimini Bon-Boulash (also known mononymously as Bimini; born 12 May 1993) is the stage name of Thomas Hibbitts, an English drag queen, author, recording artist and model based in East London, and born in Great Yarmouth, England. They are best kn ...
as Police Officer #1 *
Ayesha Antoine Ayesha Antoine is an England, English actress. She is known for portraying List of characters in Holby City#Rachel Baptiste, Rachel Baptiste in ''Holby City'', and Poppy Silver in ''Grange Hill''. Background Antoine was born in Essex, England. S ...
as Police Officer #2 ; III – Listen again and seek the sun *
Susan Wokoma Susan Indiaba Wokoma (born 31 December 1987 in Peckham, London, England) is a British actress, writer and director. She is best known for her roles as Edith in '' Enola Holmes'' and Raquel in the E4/Netflix show ''Crazyhead''. Wokoma was liste ...
as Rosa *
Helena Bonham Carter Helena Bonham Carter (born 26 May 1966) is an English actress. Known for her roles in blockbusters and independent films, particularly period dramas, she has received various awards and nominations, including a British Academy Film Award a ...
as Jen *
Paul Kaye Paul Kaye (born 15 December 1964) is an English comedian and actor. He is known for his portrayals of shock interviewer Dennis Pennis on ''The Sunday Show'', New York lawyer Mike Strutter on MTV's ''Strutter'', Thoros of Myr in HBO's ''Game of ...
as Cosmos *
Will Sharpe William Tomomori Fukuda Sharpe (born 22 September 1986) is an English actor, writer, and director. He is known for writing, directing, and starring in the 2016 dark comedy-drama ''Flowers''. He starred in the drama series ''Giri/Haji'' and the s ...
as Elias


Production

''The House'' was first announced in January 2020, with the anthology being produced at the London unit of
Nexus Studios Nexus Studios is an animation, film and interactive studio based in London and LA. It was founded in 2000 by Charlotte Bavasso and Christopher O'Reilly. Creating a range of both handcrafted and high-tech work, Nexus Studios has a team of product ...
for
Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
. Nexus had three director teams lined up to tell a tale of three distinct family generations at the same house: The duo of Emma de Swaef and Marc James Roels,
Niki Lindroth von Bahr Niki Lindroth von Bahr (born 14 February 1984, Stockholm) is a Swedish director and animator based in Stockholm, Sweden. Biography von Bahr studied animation at the Royal Institute of Art. She received her master's degree in fine art in 20 ...
, and
Paloma Baeza Paloma Baeza (born 1 May 1975) is a British actress and director of English and Mexican heritage. Her 2017 film ''Poles Apart'' won the BAFTA for best animated short film in 2018. Biography Baeza was born in London and spent her childhood in Me ...
; the directors are credited for the story of their respective segments, with Johannes Nyholm as co-writer for the second. At the 2021 Annecy Film Festival in June, the key voice cast was announced for each story. In November 2021, the first images of the anthology were revealed along with the release date of 14 January 2022. The first trailer was released in December 2021. Nicolas Ménard and Manshen Lo co-created the hand-drawn, 2D animated title sequence. The project had originated at a meeting at producer Charlotte Bavasso's London home, where the four directors "brainstormed a bit and came up with this idea about a house in which different things are happening in different times. We agreed that we would each have our own separate chapter, but still with connections to each other," according to von Bahr. Later, "We chatted a lot over
Zoom Zoom may refer to: Technology Computing * Zoom (software), videoconferencing application * Page zooming, the ability to magnify or shrink a portion of a page on a computer display * Zooming user interface, a graphical interface allowing for image ...
and helped each other with script development and character design, everything. All of us were quite new to such an upscale project, so I think this was a perfect arrangement. You had your own film, but you didn't feel alone." Bavasso, said Baeza, "brought us together and we talked about stories and characters that we were interested in, and we tried to find overlaps, which is a completely unique experience. You never get to work with filmmakers or creatives in that collaborative way where you are each doing a separate film, but also sharing lots of ideas." The directors wrote detailed story outlines, and then Irish playwright
Enda Walsh Enda Walsh (born 1967) is an Irish playwright. Biography Enda Walsh was born in Kilbarrack, North Dublin on February 7, 1967. His father ran a furniture shop and his mother had been an actress. He is the second youngest of six children. Wal ...
wrote all three segments' dialog in collaboration with them. Roels said his and Swaef's opening segment came from the desire to tell "the story of the house before there was a house, the origin story, so to speak. I had been reading a graphic novel by Richard McGuire called ''Here'', in which you see a corner of the world and how it changes through millennia. You see it as farmland, and when it was inhabited by Native Americans, and before that when there were dinosaurs. And then suddenly you're in the 1950s and someone's vacuuming the floor. And it kind of sparked off an idea, like what was there before the house?" Each of the three segments required more than 20 weeks to produce. Except for the
Busby Berkeley Busby Berkeley (born Berkeley William Enos; November 29, 1895 – March 14, 1976) was an American film director and musical choreographer. Berkeley devised elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns. Berke ...
style dance number in the second segment and the mist and some water effects in the third segment, almost all the animation was done "in camera" without
greenscreen Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fields to r ...
or digital compositing. Jarvis Cocker wrote and performed the song that plays over the closing credits.


Reception

Dmitry Samarov of the ''
Chicago Reader The ''Chicago Reader'', or ''Reader'' (stylized as ЯEADER), is an American alternative weekly newspaper in Chicago, Illinois, noted for its literary style of journalism and coverage of the arts, particularly film and theater. It was founded by a ...
'' said the movie "sustains its momentum by varying the styles of storytelling and rarely stooping to either crassness or cutesiness. ... Each story is directed by different people with obviously separate ideas and inspirations; this heterogeneity moves the film along without ever letting it overstay its welcome. Yet the unifying elements of setting and the charmingly old-fashioned stop-motion animation keep it from flying off in a million directions." Lucy Mangan in ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' gave the movie 3 out of 5 stars. She said the first segment is "by far the most successful of the trio," and that the second was "too underbaked to deliver any real horrors or work as a fable about violation, or capitalism or any of the other themes it seems at various moments to be nodding vaguely at." She said the third was "a very, very slight affair," and that overall, "If the content of the stories had matched the painstaking form, the anthology could have been rather a groundbreaking success." But Noel Murray of ''
The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...
'' said of that second segment that, "All of ''The House'' is worth watching—especially for animation buffs—but for those who can handle a hefty helping of grotesquerie, von Bahr's segment is the one can't-miss." Nick Allen at RogerEbert.com said, "With its rising directors each employing a surreal style, it creates a rich balance of ethereal, existential storytelling with stop-motion animation that's so detailed and alive you can practically feel it on your fingertips", and that it "proves to be a consistent anthology, in that it's always just about the same level of surreal, playful, sadistic, and entertaining".


Accolades


Awards

Despite being a feature film, it won Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation for
74th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards The 74th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards honored the best in artistic and technical achievement in American prime time television programming from June 1, 2021, until May 31, 2022, as chosen by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The ...
.


References


External links

* *
''The House''
official site (
Nexus Studios Nexus Studios is an animation, film and interactive studio based in London and LA. It was founded in 2000 by Charlotte Bavasso and Christopher O'Reilly. Creating a range of both handcrafted and high-tech work, Nexus Studios has a team of product ...
) {{DEFAULTSORT:House, The (2022 film) Animated anthology films Stop-motion animated films 2020s British animated films 2020s stop-motion animated films 2022 animated films 2022 films Animation anthology series Animated films about cats Animated films about rats Animated films set in the future English-language Netflix original films Films scored by Gustavo Santaolalla Films set in country houses Films set in the future Films set in the 1800s Netflix Animation films 2020s English-language films British adult animated films Trilogies 2020s American films 2020s British films