BURNOUT
A House on Fire (my latest review) refers to an actual house gone a blazing. Who started it? I don't quite know. Same goes for the movie in general. I don't know what to make of "Fire". It just lingers, it's an experiment, and we the audience are frustrated by it.
So yeah, A House on Fire is like a Forensic Files episode stretched to ninety minutes. However, there's no interviews, no creepy narrator voice, and we don't see anything magnified under a microscope. DNA stuff? Well it never comes to fruition.
You wanna see Stephanie March give a raw performance in "Fire?" Well you'll get it and it's all good. You want to see a bunch of jumbled scenes that reek of discombobulation? Well you'll get that too and it's not all good.
"Fire" has no center, no reason to bounce off of. I can't imagine what the Lifetime execs thought during the first screening. I mean how can you green-light a film that goes off on tangents while veering so far from the cinematic, beaten path? Heck, you can't root for the husband and wife characters because they are both a little off in their Dr. Phil resolves.
Released in March of this year, harboring interrogation flashbacks, and filmed in Manitoba, Canada (hey it's cheaper from a budget standpoint), A House on Fire is about a married doctor couple who are dysfunctional to the nth degree. They are in the amidst of a divorce, their house catches on fire, and they are both questioned after two of their children are burned to death.
What's the overall motif of "Fire?" Um, I'm not sure. Both parents are messed up and both of these guardian weirdos need a swift kick in the behind. A House on Fire as a pic, needs to be on "house arrest". Call the "where are they now" cast of Leave It to Beaver for reinforcements.
Written by Jesse Burleson