Movie: In The House

Can you believe my BF and I found ourselves free one evening? No event, no band practice, no gig, no meeting, no commute back from anywhere in the distance. Just one, whole, clear evening ahead. We shut our laptops and gave them the night off (well a few hours) and off to the cinema we went.For me, this is the second French film of the year the first being the Intouchables. I was late to the party on both, enjoyed both and possibly, these are the films of the year so far. It’s not been a terrific year admittedly.The house refers to the home of a family the 16-year-old Claude is fascinated by, or rather the family that lives there. Not much is mentioned of Claude’s background but this house belongs to a middle class happy family of three and he befriends the fellow teen at school by offering him maths lessons.Claude wants to improve in English and thus starts turning in essays about his experience at the house each time. His teacher, a would be novelist, takes a special interest and guiltily encourages his writing about his best friend in class. The stories get more and more colourful and we are never clear what’s real and what’s in the writers’ imagination.It all ends in tears of course with the teacher sharing Claude’s essays with his gallery manager wife and Claude developing (an even bigger) crush on his friend’s mother.A delightful, easy to watch movie.7½/10Smile factor 8½/10