★★★☆☆
A House Divided: Review of The Last House
Illustration by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
There has been an abundance of movies about isolation, particularly pertaining surviving alone in the natural world. Castaway, Gravity, The Revenant, Into the Wild, All is Lost and 127 Hours exemplify this man (or woman) versus nature narrative. Another not uncommon subgenre is that of a family united by isolation which strengthens—or strains—familial bonds and trust. Swiss Family Robinson, Captain Fantastic, The Shining, A Quiet Place, and The Witch explore family dynamics as they exist in a societal vacuum.
These types of films are everywhere, so it’s surprising that there have not been that many movies addressing the world-wide isolation (oxymoron, I know) experienced during the COVID pandemic. Ari Aster’s Eddington attempted to examine the political and social implications of the lockdown but failed to transcend the tropes of “the cycle of vengeance” story. It might be a question of how long it might take us to fully process the consequences of lockdown. We were there, but—to me at least—it seems like a dream, something that wasn’t quite real.
While not explicitly addressing the Covid lockdown, Louis Laterrier’s The Last House focuses on a family imprisoned in their own home by unknown forces and addresses, by proxy, the positive and negative implications of enforced family togetherness.
As the film opens, Jason Delgado (Wagner Moura) is fishing when he sees an unusual storm forming over the ocean. He returns home to his wife Ann (Greta Lee) and children Graham (Gabriel Barbosa), and Ruth (Emma Ho) and their labrador Cassidy. The storm hits and the rain pelts down, but the family decides to go out to get their Christmas tree anyway. To their amazement, they discover that the rain has somehow sealed them inside their house. None of the doors or windows can be opened or broken through. They are trapped. The internet and phones no longer work and the only way they have of communicating with their neighbors is through signs held up to their windows. Jason frantically tries to find a way out but is thwarted at every turn.
Resigned to the fact they are trapped in their own home, the family tries to make the best of the situation. After taking inventory, Jason realizes they have enough food for a few months, and since the power and water still work, Jason tells them they can live comfortably for some time. To make the best of a bad situation, he hauls some old vinyl, a turntable, and a DVD player out of the attic. For the next few weeks, the family watches TV, listens to tunes, and maintains as much normalcy as possible. Looking ahead, Ann starts saving tomato and vegetable seeds for possible planting. Jason, an engineer, begins working on pet projects around the house. The happy time culminates with a Christmas celebration that is tainted when the Delgados realize that one of their elderly neighbors has passed away.
As time passes, things become more desperate for the Delgados. Food is running low, the medicine for Cassy runs out, and members of the family are going stir crazy. Jason accidentally discovers that for some inexplicable reason, the top of the chimney is not sealed. He devises a series of traps that eventually bring more food into the house.
The narrative then takes an unexpected left turn when Ruth sees something ominous outside in the rain, morphing the film into a sort of revenge of nature science-fiction mash-up. While the nature of the threat and its origin is never clearly explained, it’s implied that the creatures are embodiments of the natural world seeking revenge for man’s desecration of the planet.
The turn from a sort of suburban Swiss Family Robinson narrative to a sort of eco-horror variation like Frogs, The Birds, or The Happening is disconcerting and a bit abrupt. While sharp narrative turns of this sort can work (as it does in Sinners), here it seems contrived and a bit formulaic and begs a series of questions. Why does it take months for the creatures to show up? If they are attracted by the sight of humans, why didn’t they attack earlier? And why seal their victims in their homes? Apparently, the rain does not freeze living beings on the outside.
While holes in any screenplay aren’t all that unusual, here they are big enough to drive a car through, and when the outside threat begins to fracture the family, the implausibilities multiply. The first half of the film is a refreshing look at family resilience and resourcefulness. It is fun watching the family grow closer watching the same DVD over and over again (something any parent can relate to) and seeing Ann and Jason’s ingenuity and creativeness in making their prison into a home. A major element in the intrinsic hominess of these sequences is the production design. Everything from Ruth’s homemade calendars and decorations of her attic lair to the family’s scrapped-together Christmas tree-along with their necessarily sparse gifting—is endearing. The muted and sepia-tinged cinematography also lend a warmth to the screen. Even when things turn desperate for the family, Jason’s ingenuity and determination is a compelling watch.
The transition to the eco-horror sci-fi mash-up pulls the viewer up abruptly. While not entirely implausible, the presence and intent of the creatures is as nebulous to the viewer as it is to the family. When Ruth muses that since “we’ve destroyed their world, they’re destroying ours” is the only clue to their imprisonment. Presented as this vague a trope, the nature of the menace is reduced to a secondary consideration. They lose any thematic import, becoming simply evil monsters, their insignificance underlined by the rather trite ending.
The Last House is half of a good movie. The conceit of a family confined to their home by an external threat and responding with verve and aplomb is extremely well-executed, but when the threat, instead of the family, becomes the focus (blurry as it is), the film descends into clichés and almost Disneylike affirmations.
Wagner Moura gives another outstanding performance here as Jason. His previous work in The Secret Agent and other films have catapulted him to the ranks of the A-listers, and he does not disappoint here. His Jason is a mixture of gruffness, tenderness, determination, and low-key machismo that he blends together seamlessly. Emma Ho has her moments, but her portrayal doesn’t always seem to hit the mark. At times resourceful and shrewd, the character unexpectedly descends into panicky fits—more of a problem with the script than Ho’s performance.
The conceit for this Netflix production is intriguing, but unfortunately the final product falls short. It’s too bad that an opportunity to examine the experience of lockdown and its effect on individuals and families, as well as the theme of a retributive Mother Nature were not more fully realized here.
This is a pleasant stay-at-home watch, but it could have been much, much more.
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