Written & Directed By: Mary Haverstick
Grade: B-
Home is writer/director, Mary Haverstick’s autobiographical passion project. It’s her 3rd and seemingly most personal film. The film is based on her experiences as a child in the 60s when her mother was suffering from cancer. Despite this there are moments that make it seem somewhat forced and overdramatic. It seems Haverstick would have been able to convey the feeling of authenticity a little better as she lived it, but she is closer to the story while the audience is a bit more distanced at times. However, the worried daughter, representative of Haverstick, was the one I felt for the most and seemed the most real. Luckily, the film was cast well enough to make us feel for the characters and the troubles they are struggling to get through.
Inga (Harden) is a breast cancer survivor living with her family in the countryside of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She might be a survivor, but her suffering is far from over. She’s in a dead marriage with Herman (Gaston), an alcoholic husband that is absent from the home, even when he is physically there. He doesn’t seem to care about his family any more and won’t even talk to Inga let alone have any type of passion or attraction towards her. Herman doesn’t even see their daughter, Indigo (Scheel), who has entirely given up on him. Inga tries to resurrect her marriage, but every failed attempt just scars her more. She yells at Herman for doing nothing but drinking, yet nearly every night she is pushed to the bottle as well. As if her husband’s rejection isn’t enough, she deals with the memories of her parent’s as well. Her mother was very sick when she was young, which Inga hated her. Home wasn’t a warm place for her and she doesn’t want the same for her own daughter.
During the day Inga is actually a very good mother. She spends her days with Indigo exploring their surroundings, their imaginations, and their perceptions of the possibilities in the world. They often gaze up at the clouds talking about all the different things they see the clouds turning in to. Inga is a big part of Indigo’s growing mind as she is a poet herself. Although, her poem’s have beauty in them, her nightlife is much uglier. Inga’s anger and drunken bitterness could very well make her lose Indigo, which seems to be one of the only good things she has left in her life.
Marcia Gay Harden does very well as Inga, the miserable cancer survivor who struggles with family woes. Harden has many sides to her character and hits on all of them. She shows strength in the hospital scenes, fighting this terrible disease and winning. Harden shows great admiration for life and all of the beauty in it through the character’s poetic flare as well as the way she talks with her daughter. Yet she is painfully weak when talking to her husband, desperate for him to just see her or utter a few words. Inga fights to keep her marriage together, but it seems to be a losing battle. The character’s sides are literally like day and night. She makes us hate her when she becomes the selfish drunk by night. Still even here, she portrays her character as the mess that she has become, making us feel sorry for her and even more so for the daughter that is desperate to help her.
Marcia Gay Harden’s real life daughter, Eulala Scheel, gave a youthful, insightful, and very delightful performance as Indigo. She shows a playful curiosity about everything around her. She plays a pretty intelligent young girl, even taking on the role of the adult when she has too. Scheel manages to do this while still seeming like a realistic kid. She manages to hold together some of the tougher scenes with Harden and her while seeming imaginative and curious in the lighter scenes. She actually got me to care about what was going on in the movie more than anything else did. Michael Gaston fell slightly short as the cold and withdrawn husband and father. He just didn’t seem to have any personality at all and there really wasn’t much of a character there. The character didn’t show much of himself at all and his family and home were invisible to him. I guess this would be the most frustrating thing when trying to save a marriage and your husband will barely even acknowledge you. I felt like I should have hated his character more, but I just didn’t really feel anything towards him.
The scenery is beautiful throughout the film. During the day everything is very colorful, light emerging through nearly every shot. However, during the night scenes things are much darker, the pained characters seen in muted tones just emerging out of the darkness. The tone and visuals always correspond with each other very well. A major part of the film centers on Inga as a poet, giving voiceovers and readings of her poetry over the scene. This helps us know where her mind is and gives us a better understanding of her. It also makes some of the brighter scenes very reflective, showing an appreciation for life that is far away in other scenes where Inga screams how she hates her life. Poetry is a means for self-expression, for getting your voice out when you might not be able to just come out and say it otherwise. However, we are only given the sunny poetry and none that explains any of the trouble or suffering she is going through. We understand why she is upset and what she is going through, but it seems like matching words with these feelings would be the most therapeutic thing for her. At times Home comes dangerously close to a movie of the week, sometimes melodramatic and a bit generic. Also, the great mother by day and hurtful drunk by night contrast is a bit extreme since it always follows this pattern. Usually that's when her husband is home and angers her, but her childhood problems are a cause of her drinking, which are always with her. In the end, it’s the incredible lead performances by the real mother-daughter team that add care and concern to the equation.
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