In the House
Cohen Media Group | Release Date: April 19, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
72
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
21
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
EmpireGuy LodgeApr 15, 2013
Ozon weaves another spellbinding tale that mingles the real and imaginery with terrific effect. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayApr 17, 2013
All the way up to the stunning final shot, Ozon urgently asks whether, for storytellers, it’s better to be on the outside looking in, or the inside looking out. Read full review
90
Village VoiceZachary WigonApr 16, 2013
In the House is a mystery, but it investigates a far tougher riddle than what makes Claude tick—it's trying to figure out why, exactly, voyeurism and mystery delight us so. In the process, it delights us. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesMay 15, 2013
In the House, from the eclectic French filmmaker François Ozon (Under the Sand, 8 Women), is an almost perverse delight, an egghead thriller that slyly shell-games its truer purpose as an inquiry into the construction – and deconstruction – of fiction. Scratch deconstruction: Make that tear-the-house-down demolition. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia PuigApr 18, 2013
With its complex look at storytelling, imagination and the teacher-student dynamic, In the House is an elaborate cinematic fresco. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeApr 18, 2013
More inspired by than adapted from Juan Mayorga’s play “The Boy in the Last Row,” this low-key thriller feels like a return to form for Ozon, whose pictures lost their psychosexual edge after the helmer stopped collaborating with Emmanuele Bernheim (“Swimming Pool”). Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyApr 18, 2013
François Ozon can usually be counted on for dark irony of the juiciest sort...But the filmmaker has an especially deft touch when a dash of comedy is mixed in. He uses this to delicious effect in his latest, In the House. Read full review
80
NPRElla TaylorApr 18, 2013
In the House is often mordantly funny. Luchini is France's master of deadpan comedy: When he does farce, it carries an undertow of sorrow, and vice versa. Read full review
80
Total FilmJames MottramApr 15, 2013
Utterly assured, breathtakingly executed and riotously funny, this is a delight. Read full review
78
Film.comJordan HoffmanApr 17, 2013
In the House is crafty and juicy and ought to delight anyone whose ever thumped their chest about being a storyteller. I must confess, however, that somewhere in the third act the air started to leak from the balloon. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanMay 19, 2013
These veterans realize they’re all playing cogs in the director’s plot-twisting machine. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesJim EmersonMay 9, 2013
After a while, it seems to run out of places to go, but for most of its running time, it’s a wickedly clever divertissement. Read full review
75
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreApr 29, 2013
For all its pleasures, as Germaine nudges Claude toward that “ideal” ending that will make the reader say “I never saw that coming” and “It could not have ended any other way” at the same time, one only wishes this absorbing but melodramatic film had taken that advice. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerApr 26, 2013
In the House does at least engage us. It even enlists us implicitly as co-conspirators in Claude’s devious storytelling. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedApr 16, 2013
There are humorous intrusions (e.g., an art show at Jeanne’s gallery that includes Nazi symbols constructed from penises), and great performances throughout. Read full review
70
The New YorkerAnthony LaneApr 22, 2013
It seems not just against the odds but against the laws of nature that a film as bookish, as suburban, and as self-consciously clever as In the House should also be such fun. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternApr 18, 2013
The cleverness gives considerable pleasure until the story grows absurd and the story within the story turns unpleasant, like the creepily precocious young man who tells it. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottApr 18, 2013
In the House weaves a pleasant and clever spell, manipulating the viewer much in the way that Claude plays with Germain. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezMay 9, 2013
In the House seems to be building toward a cathartic and unexpected finale. Instead, you get a baffling fizzle — an inexcusably limp and unimaginative conclusion that doesn’t bring a single plot strand to a satisfying end. Read full review
63
New York PostKyle SmithApr 18, 2013
In the House promises to be a social satire with a flash of Hitchcockian menace, but gradually it turns into a routine thumb-sucker on reality versus fiction. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineNick McCarthyApr 17, 2013
It's buoyant and titillates, striking that distinctly Ozonian balance between the beautiful and the sinister, but it doesn't resonate. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanApr 18, 2013
Neither Claude nor Ozon comes up with a satisfying finish to this intriguing setup. But because they’re both so committed to seducing their audience, it’s a lot of fun watching them try. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawApr 15, 2013
A black-comic psychological drama with poise and self-possession. Featuring Fabrice Luchini and Kristin Scott Thomas, how could it have anything else? Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTom RussoMay 9, 2013
After all the mesmerizingly illicit buildup, the film’s willful lack of a payoff is almost as strange as one of those essays. Read full review
40
Time OutEric HynesApr 16, 2013
Characters seem less entrapped by their desires than by plot necessities — a fact that’s not redeemed by Ozon’s winking self-awareness. Read full review
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