The premise of a family in exile in their own home awkwardly located next to a highway was enough to get me to the far end of the Croisette (Cannes’ Semaine de la Critique screenings are held at the inconveniently located Miramar space), but once settled in, I ultimately thought that helmer Ursula Meier didn’t know how to work beyond a paper-thin narrative and relied way too much on metaphor and symbolism. Starring Isabelle Huppert, Home has found a home in the U.S. with Lorber Films, a timely pick up since it is among the many films vying for the Foreign Oscar nomination. The pic receives a theatrical release late next month.
Amid a peaceful, deserted countryside, extends as far as the eye can see, an empty four-lane motorway, with the still immaculate asphalt, inactive ever since its construction already some years ago. By its side, just a few yards from the guardrails, stands a lonely house with a small garden. In it, lives a family. It is the start of summer and the motorway is about to be opened to traffic.
Literally “planted” on the edge of the motorway, a few meters from the thousands of exhaust pipes, in an ever more infernal, unending din, the family loses its bearings and fragile balance, and ends up by shutting themselves in, becoming increasingly marginalized, and gradually sinking into madness…
