Housekeeping for Beginners 2024
I got a free pass to see this movie from Focus Insiders. Like most Focus Features movies this is pretty low budget movie that gets a lot of raves from critics. It was made in North Macedonia, so it is subtitled throughout. Critics like indie movies, foreign movies, and movies about gay lifestyle, so this has all of that. While it seems heartfelt, none of that means it is a great movie. It is a slice of life film about a household of outcasts, mostly gay, lesbian, or ethnic Romani. It is too much to get into all of it and I never fully understood who all of these people were in this house or why, but there are some children who need to be taken care of, so it is a modern family soap opera in a lot of ways. Everything is hectic and adversarial, so mostly unpleasant. I'm not sure why people want to see a movie like this when you can talk to a friend who has a challenging family life. One big conflict point later in the movie seems unnecessarily forced, which lost points for me. Because it is noisy and subtitled, you often don't know who is saying what. In fact, with the addition of the Roma language, you don't even realize that some of the characters in one scene can't understand each other because they are speaking different languages. However, it is kind of neat to see some of the social issues going on in North Macedonia, a country most Americans probably don't realize exists. It isn't a bad movie at all, but not really something I usually enjoy. However there are some interesting points and characters to meet, so it certainly isn't without merits.
Written: 20 Apr 2024