A rancher (Jeremy Irons), his clairvoyant wife (Meryl Streep) and their family face turbulent years in South America. The story is a sweeping and brooding melodrama, spanning generations and filled with violence, revenge, and telekinesis.
14 April 1986
16 January 1952, Lisbon, Portugal
1943
27 June 1926, Dessau, Germany
30 January 1937, Greenwich, London, England, UK
16 November 1945, Harlingen, Texas, USA
9 August 1932, Portadown, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, UK
1919, Portugal
23 July 1937, Denmark
17 June 1942, Chiloé, Chile
5 November 1930, Cozumel, Quintana Roo, Mexico
29 September 1929, Basel, Switzerland
29 October 1971, Winona, Minnesota, USA
15 November 1958
29 June 1957, Cienfuegos, Cuba
31 December 1955, Los Angeles, California, USA
6 March 1987, London, England, UK
4 March 1945, New York City, New York, USA
1 June 1969, Dover, Delaware, USA
7 November 1942, Barbacena, Elvas, Portugal
10 August 1960, Málaga, Málaga, Andalucía, Spain
15 October 1947, Munich, Bavaria, Germany
3 September 1944, Setúbal, Portugal
11 April 1961, Buffalo, New York, USA
May 20, 2013
It's also a wretched paradox: a big budget, star-driven art film whose very elements subvert its ambitions and turn it into the thing it least wants to be -- a listless '50s-style Hollywood melodrama.
May 20, 2013
The House of the Spirits is like Gone With the Wind with the fun and excitement replaced by lofty. All that's left is the wind.
May 20, 2013
How can an accomplished director take a great novel, the best actors working and the finest technicians available and make a film so... bland? It's a puzzlement.
May 20, 2013
The thing works in its goofy way, mainly because Bille August is a man of apparently dauntless conviction. He has written and directed every scene with serene authority.
May 20, 2013
Inert from its opening moments to its too-long-delayed close, this lackluster production is an example of international filmmaking at its least attractive, and a misstep in the careers of pretty much everyone involved.
May 20, 2013
The film version stresses political intrigue and revolutionary violence at The expense of the anything-goes dreaminess that gives the book its most memorable moments. A stellar cast doesn't help much.
May 20, 2013
The story, from the best-selling novel by Isabel Allende, is purely incidental to the unintentionally hysterical stylings of this potential camp cult film. It's truly awful, and one shouldn't miss it for the world.
May 20, 2013
Similar epics are made with more conviction and less pretension on daytime TV.
May 20, 2013
This isn't just a bad movie -- it's hugely, grandiosely, pompously bad.
May 20, 2013
Given the talents involved, the film's hesitations in style and consistent failure to really move must be counted as a major disappointment.
May 20, 2013
The flaws aren't fatal. The beauty and brilliance that might have been, don't preclude the quality and bravery that exist on the screen.
May 20, 2013
It's always painful when a brilliant book becomes a bust of a movie.
