The House of Yes
Miramax Films | Release Date: October 10, 1997 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
54
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 15 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
8
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
The House of Yes is what happens when a film takes the dysfunctional family melodrama to its farthest reaches. It's a bold, gutsy movie that's definitely not for everyone. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The House of Yes is knowingly overripe, a kitsch melodrama that dares to make incest sexy. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
But it is bright, smart, sometimes wickedly funny, and crisply performed to the point where the acting seems richer than the script. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesJohn Anderson
In addition to its terrifically bratty performance by the epically bratty Posey, House of Yes contains some of the smarter (and smarter-assed) writing of the year. Read full review
70
TimeRichard Corliss
But the film is keyed to Posey's performance: perfectly brittle, faultlessly false. As the most toxic of this family of vipers, she creeps and stings, and no one dares look away. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
When the film was over I was not particularly pleased that I had seen it; it was mostly behavior and contrivance. While it was running, I was not bored. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderLisa Alspector
Sex and JFK's assassination are intertwined in this puerile, pseudodark story about a wacky family--an adaptation of Wendy MacLeod's play that uses the medium of cinema mainly to exploit archival footage. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
For all its talk about sex, incest, insanity and the gory details of the Kennedy assassination, Mark Waters' adaptation of Wendy MacLeod's play doesn't really amount to much more than a lurid, thoroughly enjoyable little pot-boiler. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleEdward Guthmann
Stylized dialogue tends to play awkwardly onscreen -- we're conditioned to naturalistic conversation in films -- and Waters, who makes his feature directing debut with The House of Yes, fails to create an emotional tone or attitude to match the characters' goofy repartee. Read full review
50
The New York TimesStephen Holden
The House of Yes was adapted from a play by Wendy MacLeod. And the movie, with its brittle, outrageous dialogue has a shrill stagy feel. That would be fine, if the dialogue sustained the stylish crackle of a drawing-room comedy gone berserk, but there are many gaping holes between the funny moments. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Director Mark Waters has done probably the best possible job translating the material to film, and the truly filmic moments work well, but with this dialogue-heavy material, it's like trying to translate Run-DMC lyrics into Old French. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Written and directed by Mark Waters, who strives for David Mamet-style punchiness but doesn't develop the quirky momentum that would carry the deliberately out-of-kilter story past its implausibilities. Read full review
50
L.A. WeeklyManohla Dargis
What follows doesn't much surprise, since every emotional detail, accompanied by a noisy storm and then a black-out, arrives well in advance of its execution. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Staged and stagy, this adaptation of Wendy MacLeod's play about family dysfunction and the "anti-Camelot" is a muddled, middling mess, despite a witty, top-drawer performance from Posey and a surprisingly comic turn from Spelling. Read full review
38
USA TodaySusan Wloszczyna
With its Rocky Horror meets Camelot aura, this little black movie reeks of self-satisfied smugness and pretentious perversity as only a Sundance Festival favorite can -- especially one that squanders the considerable quirky charms of indie-film darling Parker Posey. [10Oct1997 pg 04.D]
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