To merely call Michael Baumgarten’s “The Guest House” bad
would be seriously understating what a truly dire catalogue of cinematic
blunders it actually is. It is a piece of anti-cinema, a work that is so
dispiriting, baffling, clichéd and unprofessional that I had to actively fight
against my will to carry on watching.
The film is basically Before Sunrise, but with a lesbian
couple and set over a weekend in Los Angeles; Rachel is played by Ruth
Williams, and her character is the daughter of an overbearing father (Tom
McCafferty). She keeps protesting how she’s 18, yet she finds herself grounded
for staying out late with her boyfriend, who dumps her in the films' opening
scene. She is tasked with looking after Amy, played by Madeleine Merritt, who
has come to work with Rachel’s father and is staying in the eponymous guest
house. It is not long before sparks fly, and the two are “in love”, making out
in hideously filmed softcore sex scenes in which nudity is scarce, soft-focus
is in abundance, and passion is lacking.
There are so many things this film could have been, but they
are truly done a disservice by a script and direction that suggest unprofessionalism
of the highest order. It’s shot on an HD digital camera, and it looks terrible;
from the very first shot, in which a car driving through LA is obstructed by a
random tree in front of the camera, we know we’re dealing with something bad. And
as it becomes apparent that the films’ habit of looking like the exposition in
a terrible porn film (you know the type) is not going to be shaken over the
brief, yet tedious, run time, we start to focus on other things instead.
But the dialogue is a crashing bore, and if this is a love
story (and not an erotic film, at all, as the films’ cover and poster suggest)
then it is one of the most incompetently handled love stories ever put on
screen. At no point did I ever, ever believe that these two people had any
emotional connection of any kind whatsoever. Instead, we are given a number of
stock clichés which ring jarringly false; the “bonding” through the streets of
LA, taking a shower together, making breakfast in bed, one playing a piano solo
for the other, and so on. But neither character is at all interesting enough to
warrant the time we are expected to spend around them, and the acting is simply
perfunctory. There was potential for a certain erotic pull in the sex scenes,
but this too is completely ruined by the ham-fisted camerawork and the lack of
conviction or connection between the two actresses. It fails as a love story,
it fails as a drama, and you’d better believe it fails as porn.
I could go on. I won’t. Bottom line is, don’t watch this
film. In an act of solidarity, I’ve already forgotten most of it myself.
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