Home Movie (2002)

They say that a house is not necessarily a home, and Chris Smith's film seems to endorse that. It's about five people who live in unusual domiciles, and what's interesting about it is that these people have taken basic structures (houses) and reconfigured them to fit their particular manias (homes). It takes a certain type of person to dedicate themselves to the kind of things that these people have done (refurbishing an old military bomb shelter, for instance, or building the world's coolest treehouse in the Amazon), and there's many opportunities to make fun of these people or to condescend to them. Smith, to his credit, takes these people at face value and doesn't use his camera to judge them... except for the couple who has remodeled their house for the comfort of their cats. Sorry, but these people are nuts, and no amount of objectivity on Smith's part can make them look less nuts or more interesting. Smith seems to realize this, as they show up the least out of any of the profiled people. Other than the cat people, this is a neat little film. Regarding the Cajun man living on the houseboat: Damn, he seems like the world's coolest drinking buddy.

Grade: B