Critics reviews

On first viewing Bill Forsyth's film Housekeeping (1987) I was somewhat unimpressed by its low-key television-movie feel... On closer inspection, though, Housekeeping belies an eloquent audiovisual arrangement, submerging profound aspects of the original material in an unpretentious style, leaving them to rise to the surface of their own accord.

I recently read Marilynne Robinson's sad and lovely novel of the same name, and now I'm astonished by how neatly Forsyth's screen adaptation complements its source. Robinson's detailed prose and biblical allusions find their analogues in the film's subdued colors, its period costuming, and the real-life mountains that cradle it like a mother's arms.

Forsyth's first American production, HOUSEKEEPING advances an aesthetic in his work that was seemingly influenced by the exquisite beauty of his home country. There's also a Jarmuschian lyricism in his depiction of nature; it shares its wisdom with Sylvie and her niece but never relinquishes its supreme power over them.

My own spotty sense of Forsyth's previous work... hadn't led me to expect a film with this sort of ambition or depth... Perhaps by associating Gregory's Girl with the behavioral charm of a Francois Truffaut or a Milos Forman, I was misled into assuming that the Scottish filmmaker wasn't above milking his audience with a related form of humanist hype, effective but rather facile; now I'm inclined to suspect that he may be a good deal more subtle than either.