HOUSESITTER (1992) **1/2 It's supposed to be full of all these unrealistic improbabilities, but the only part that I have difficulty with is that Steve Martin could still be interested in Dana Delany after meeting Goldie Hawn. Well, I mean that and she'd be interested in his character. The orthodox critics used to always complain that Steve Martin always appeared as himself, but by this time he was staying in character (to the point of being buried by the effervescent one) and so they complained about that instead. It's a dry role for Steve, but he works the subtleties in ways that you won't even notice, unless you try real hard. Goldie's just in your face and in the trees and in the pond and on the bus and absolutely everywhere at the same time, proving that nothing wild can ever be truly tamed and that there is no such thing as finality, rationality, or reality. Or perhaps, like Nietzsche, she chooses to demonstrate that reality doesn't rank among the higher truths, no telling. She goes so fast that she takes you there with her, and if she doesn't bother naming it why should anyone bother? As a romantic comedy is it unnecessarily tethered to the early corporate-era zeitgeist ? Maybe, but don't forget that nothing is truly tethered, and I imagine they were both already tired of preaching to the choir. It reminds me, in a link stronger in subjectivity than causation, of how Kurt Vonnegut's presidential candidate gives everyone two new sets of relatives in Slapstick.
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