You won't be disappointed!

Great Film overall

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Great movie, very emotional, well written and acted. Don't tell anybody but I cried thru the whole movie.

just beautiful. for performance. for profound - game of reflections -story. and for the art to discover root of basic things. tale of a family. crisis, frustrations, lost of patience. and a house. as axis, silhouette, mirror. river of tensions. search of sense. a war out of limits. or sense. in fact, a secret battle. and the fragile, magnificent victory. victory of each character. against it. result - touching-subtle picture of every day. a lesson. and more. because this film is only echo of ordinaries situations. nothing more. its real virtue - to be an universal image. not inspiration for solutions. not sad. just meditation about root. root of small events. and build of a house into the heart of others soul.

Screenwriter Mark Andrus attempts to write for beleaguered middle-aged adults as well as 'misunderstood' high school kids in "Life as a House", and neither group comes off especially well. Kevin Kline, a divorced and unemployed model-maker recently fired from an architectural design firm, decides to tear down his ramshackle oceanfront abode to build his dream home (perhaps not the ideal time); he also chooses this unintended respite to get reacquainted with his pierced, pill-popping teenage son, who wears eye makeup to show us he's rebellious (also to allow his stepfather to call him "queer" so we can see what an insensitive jerk the guy is). Andrus doesn't miss a beat: we also get Kristin Scott Thomas as Kline's still-loving ex-wife who harps at him exhaustively when she's not coyly flirting (she pays a visit and whispers, "I dreamed about your house last night..."). The moody, foul-mouthed son has enough problems to star in his own movie; he berates his father, too, with such dialogue as, "You can't promise me anything because you don't have anything to promise!" It's a groan-worthy soap opera accented with little bits of naughty business (like Kline urinating in his yard when his plumbing goes out) which serve no purpose except to make us snicker. It turns out the kid isn't "queer" after all once he begins trading jaded endearments with the conveniently-placed doe-eyed lass next door, and Kline gets his way with the city ordinance after taking a chainsaw to a cabinet and installing that all-important enclosure around his toilet. If only real life were so simple! * from ****

I enjoyed this flick and felt it over all met its mark. Life is to be lived because you never know when those who you love may be having to exit it.I hated the crummy and cheap women who aggressively pursued the teen age boys. The old woman should be ashamed of herself and maybe arrested? The teenage daughter attempted to shower and get her hands into the young co-star's pants from the get go? Are women that easy? I guess things have changed since I was young. The pill has made women go wild.But, other than these cheese side plots, I felt the transformations many of the principle characters went through was inspirational.