The House of the Spirits |  | Director: Bille August
Actors: Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Winona Ryder, Antonio Banderas
Studio: Live / Artisan
Category: DVD
Buy New: $44.98
as of 3/18/2010 06:43 EDT details
New (7) Used (14) from $25.49
Seller: Rays Music
Rating:  51 reviews
Sales Rank: 18240
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 140 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
UPC: 012236117971
EAN: 0012236117971
ASIN: B00005B1VQ
Theatrical Release Date: April 1, 1994
Release Date: May 22, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
The House of the Spirits is a generational tale of life among the ruling class in a South American country, as adapted from the Isabel Allende novel, but the political realities coexist very uneasily with the magical realism in this Bille August film. The star power alone (Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Winona Ryder, Antonio Banderas, Vanessa Redgrave, and Armin Mueller-Stahl) should have cranked it up a few notches, but that's not the case. Irons is appropriately cruel as the ambitious man who achieves wealth and makes everyone around him miserable and Streep is luminous, but it's slow and ponderous all the way. --Marshall Fine
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 51
 POWERHOUSE February 21, 2010
T. Bellows
Wonderful stuff! Violence done, but underplayed just enough. Classy!
I like the spiritual dimension of this too. I read a number of Harold Klemp's books,
and they helped me most with a spiritual understanding of how life works.
Also Dethlefsen is very fine on that. - - -
 Heavily Hollywoodized; the second part is ridiculous! July 28, 2009
LH (NY)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was so looking forward to watching this movie. I loved the book and have read it many times over the years, but the movie was made when I was really young so I never had a chance to pick it up until recently I found the VHS version in my local library. It ended up being a huge disappointment! By the time I figured out they have combined the daughter and granddaughter into one character, I had completely lost interest in the movie. The plot became ridiculous and does not make any sense. Why would Pedro (and they pronounce the name with heavy American accent even though all the characters were supposed to be Chileans!) hide in a basement while his lover was suffering in the prison for him? It doesn't make any sense. The reconciliation scene between Esteban and Pedro was just weird and completely out of character.
The movie just butchered the book into pieces. If it's only "loosely" based on the book, why even use the same name? I wonder what Allende thinks about this horrendous rendition of her masterpiece. I agree with another user that this movie is a sad reflection of Hollywood's cultural narrow-mindedness.
 I love this film! June 9, 2009
G. Torres (New York, New York)
Of course the book is far better than the movie as it usually happens, yet I can't help but love this film and I think the main reason is because it was great and refreshing to see Winona Ryder play a character unlike any other she had done prior to this movie.
In reality this movie should have been made into a miniseries, having other characters such as Clara's excentric uncle who appears at the beginning of the story, the twins and Alba's love interest. Nonetheless, this movie with all its imperfections shall always have a special place in my heart.
 A rewarding film! January 19, 2009
Hiram Gomez Pardo (Valencia, Venezuela)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
From the touching inspiration of Isabel Allende, this feminine perspective deals about the profound emotional conflicts inside a wealthy family. The film makes a smart narrative ellipsis through threwe generations along seventy years, and shows us those first insights of a little child by then, who is gifted of premonitory visions, who falls in love with the boyfriend of her sister. She foresees an imminent tragedy and lives with this terrible sense of guilt by not having been able to avoid it.
But, through the years, this young boy will become a true wealthy man and love will make the rest. But meanwhile, there's a lot of brilliant secondary plots that enrich the historical vision with absorbing engagement.
Once more, Jeremy Irons and Merrill Streep reencountered again and both head with admirable realism to convey those unsaid feelings. But besides, the film shows us the social environment, its inner contradictions, the conflict of power between this self-exigent man and his sister Ferula (Glenn Close) and the unstoppable love affair (a veiled homage to Romeo and Juliet) among his own daughter (Winona Ryder with her dazzling beauty) and the son of a very humble worker of his farm (Antonio Banderas).
The narrative pulse of Billie August breaths a pastoral poetry, with those arresting landscapes but overall to be able to express and even universalize the provincial environment without falling into commonplaces.
reconciliation and growth- the "connection between events"- that's what the movie is about December 29, 2006
Mauricio Miraglia (Santiago de Chile)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
At least that's what it meant to me. Replace "South America" in all reviews by the word "Chile", because that is where the story belongs in its cut and dry facts. A wealthy family, a Shakespearean love between a peasant's son and a land owner's daughter; betrayal, rage, passion, violence and murder, ghosts (spirits), rebelion and freedom: all these are just some of the ingredients portraid in the movie with a great line up, awsome landscape and fairly good soundtrack. If you ever visit Chile, please see this movie and you'll understand part of the Chilean character and history: under our modern facade, there's still Biancas, Pedros and Truebas.
The movie personally helped me see my own story and find new connections between myself, my family and the culture where I was born and raised: that of Chile's.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 51
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