Take a Pillbox Hat and a Social Taboo...

Do you think that your family is dysfunctional? Do you dread going home for Thanksgiving? Welcome to The House of Yes: you're probably not this bad off. With a screenplay adapted from Wendy MacLeod's acclaimed play, the film touches with a brilliant but subtle hand on complex issues such as mental illness, family relationships, upper class apathy and sex. This beautiful movie has a quiet, dream-like quality that lends an appropriate surrealism to the entire set. In this world, nothing is real or logical; everything is permissible and negotiated, from identity to familial relationships.

The movie revolves around the character of Jackie O., played by Time's recently crowned "Queen of the Indies" Parker Posey. Posey is at her best, as a women so completely mesmerized by the Kennedy myth that she has completely reformed her identity. She parades around in three-strand pearls and little black dresses while sipping German wine and tossing off one-liners ("I never understand people who don't understand that I am completely fabulous"). Her world is disturbed with the arrival of her brother Marty (a superb Josh Hamilton) and his fiancee Lesly (Tori Spelling, yes, of "90210" fame).

Spelling is actually surprisingly good as the sugar-coated, giggly fiancee who realizes early on the disturbing secrets held within the stately walls of their home--the House of Yes, as quickly becomes apparent. Genevieve Bujold, a popular Canadian movie star, plays the eccentric, witty and coldly sinister family matriarch, Mrs. Pascal. Many of the family's tragedies can be blamed on this woman who manages to avoid all fault by merely saying that "one raises cattle, children just are and you let the be." Rounding out the cast is Freddie Prinze, Jr., who plays Anthony, Jackie O. and Marty's awkward, sexually frustrated little brother whose days are spent in aimless activity.

The story begins as Marty brings his new fiancee home on a stormy Thanksgiving for what should be a lovely dinner with the fam. During the course of the evening it is exposed that Marty and his sister Jackie have had an ongoing incestuous relationship for about ten years. Both have been mentally scarred in their own way, although Jackie obviously more visibly so with her wild fantasies of the Kennedy assassination. For Marty, home represents the insane and the chaotic, even as he is passionately drawn to the seductive charms of his family. He is searching for normalcy shown by his sweet, cookie-cutter girlfriend whose "breath smells like powdered sugar," but he is ultimately unable to realize it.

To crown it all, ten minutes after the audience learns of the incest, it is revealed that Mr. Pascal disappeared inexplicably on November 22, 1963--at precisely the same second that Kennedy was shot. Did the Pascal family carry their Kennedy obsession too far and kill him? Or is it just one of the many coincidences that abound in the House of Yes? We never quite find out, but we never stop guessing.

Waters does an excellent job of building climax. The movie is so atypical that one cannot assume anything about the characters let alone what they might do. With the family trapped in the house while the storm rages outside, the tensions and emotions reach a dangerous level. When the lights go out (of course), conversation soon leads to unnecessary discoveries on everyone's part, and Marty and Lesly struggle to remain controlled despite the insanity that threatens to engulf them.

What makes The House of Yes the type of movie that sends you home talking is that the characters are real enough to be recognizable, yet perverted enough to upset our sensibilities. Jackie O. is not a totally foreign character, but the extent to which she carries out her fantasy is. Her family all tread very softly around her, hoping that "she won't be dangerous as long as she takes her medicine." Lesly, as the odd man out, is the only character to question the family's complete submission to and indulgence of Jackie O. With the exact nature of Jackie's illness left very vague, the viewer suffers from a devilish, but painful, ambivalence over whether her mental state followed the incest or was present all along. Meanwhile, Mrs. Pascal and the rest of the family accept the incest as a natural occurrence in this very unconventional family.

The House of Yes is worth a second look, as it provokes the viewer throughout and calls into question many of the assumptions one holds about family incest. The Pascals live without any kind of moral rules to guide their decisions; consequently, they are faced with tragedy. In a house where anything goes, the effect is that of a lab experiment gone horribly wrong--but one that you just can't help watching.