It is just after dawn, but before anybody is on the streets of a very small town. Despite the absence of cars, a vehicle slowly comes to complete stop at any intersection and signals they are turning right.
We’re not even out of the opening credits and we already know something about the driver. Here is somebody who always follows the rules, even if nobody is around to notice whether or not they do so.
Such is the subtlety of Housekeeping, an amazing 1987 film which has never been promoted much. I watched it on an import blu-ray, only because I was intrigued by a cover that misled me into thinking this would be a zany comedy.
Though it has some laughs, this isn’t primarily a comedy. It also has an amazing character played by Christine Lahti who could very well be described as “zany”, though there is also an underlying melancholy there.
Lahti is the sister of the woman we saw driving in the opening credits—a woman who kills herself in as orderly a manner as she was driving and likely as orderly a manner as she lived her entire life. She leaves behind two daughters for whom no other relations can be found except Lahti, who reluctantly accepts the role of surrogate mom.
The daughters are played by Sara Walker and Andrea Burchill. I don’t believe I have seen either in anything else. Here, they turn in what is among the best performance I have ever seen from teen actors.
Turns out Lahti has been living rough and riding the rails for years. She has a great deal of difficulty settling down, though her love for her nieces is obviously strong.
Housekeeping communicates this, and much else, largely through fleeting glances and tiny mannerisms. The dialogue is good throughout, but much more is happening in unspoken ways.
This movie is a minor miracle—a film so free of pretentions that it sneaks up on you without you realizing how great it is. It has been a year since I watched it, and I’m still chewing on it.
Near the end, a character in narration says, “And that was the end of housekeeping”. I love that line, as it is as if the character is both commenting wryly on what is happening on the screen and also providing a meta-commentary that the movie is over.
And yet the movie still goes on for just a bit after that. I can’t remember if there was any more narration after that line, but I hope there wasn’t. It wouldn’t make or break the moment, but it would make even more special a final image that is among the most beautiful I have seen in a film.
Dir: Bill Forsyth
Starring Christine Lahti, Sara Walker, Andrea Burchill
Watched on Indicator/Powerhouse UK blu-ray (Region B)