The House of Yes . Tucson Weekly . 10-27-97

The House of Yes

DIRECTED BY: Mark Waters

REVIEWED: 10-27-97

Perhaps the most notable aspect of House of Yes, a low-budget independent film, is the appearance of Tori Spelling in a rare "dramatic" role. Spelling plays an agreeable, innocent girl-next-door-type who falls in with the decadent Pascals, a family of Washington blue-bloods who indulge one another in the most shocking improprieties, including a sexualized re-enactment of the Kennedy assassination. House of Yes is based on the play by Wendy MacLeod and it both benefits and suffers from all the standard problems of transferring a play to film: It's static and claustrophobic, though the characters are colorful and the dialogue witty. The movie (like the play--in fact, like most plays) is about a stress-filled Thanksgiving weekend when all the members of a crazy, memorable family reach a crisis and reveal their deepest secrets. It's diverting, but basically pointless, unless you count the vaguely suggested Amish-style theme that wealth and power have an unlimited potential to corrupt the family. For an actor who's inherently annoying, Spelling does just fine; Parker Posey and Josh Hamilton, as an unstoppable brother-sister pair, are even better.

--Richter

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