By Simon Thompson
Writer/director Thomas Sieben’s Home Sweet Home is an impressively made, yet strangely empty movie, that tries to cram in so many narrative strands that it ends up diminishing a simple and effective three act structure in the process. Although Sieben’s sheer ambition in filming this movie in the way that he did is something to be commended, pesky details like a fleshed out supporting cast and slow, carefully crafted tension are pushed aside harder than someone hawking multiple copies of John Romero’s Daikatana.
The plot of Home Sweet Home follows Maria ( Nilam Farooq), a young pregnant woman staying at the home of her boyfriend Viktor’s (David Kross) family. Alone for a few hours on an ominous dark night with nothing better to do, Maria decides to explore round the place-upon which she discovers that Viktor’s family history is, of course, hiding a terrible secret, of which she must deal with the consequences.
When presented with that set up, you would be right in thinking that it doesn’t sound particularly original and Sieben does absolutely nothing new with this premise at all- with the movie’s narrative unfolding about as predictably as a Live At The Apollo punchline.
This is due to the unusual one take shooting style that Sieben decided to employ, which is a piece of movie-making bravery that should be applauded, but unless you have a strong script such as Birdman or Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (two examples of films that are both one continuous take) you’re left with more of a gimmick than you are a narrative.
Cinematography wise, credit is due where credit is due, as Daniel Gottschalk does an excellent job of bringing out the stark rural beauty of the film’s setting, employing a lot of warm blues, which gives the cinematography a strangely dream-like, yet sinister, quality.
The acting in Home Sweet Home isn’t really anything all that special for the most part, but I would say that Nilam Farooq in her performance as Maria does a decent job when you consider the material that she’s been given to work with. Farooq manages to project both a certain level of fear and pathos with her performance and, considering that she’s the character the audience spends the most time with, she doesn’t irritate you into rooting for the antagonist out of spite.
To conclude, as well directed and shot a movie as Home Sweet Home is, it still can’t overcome its flawed script. This is a movie which would have been much better off being a good 25-40 minutes longer so as to allow for expanded characterisation and world building.
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