House of D [DVD] [2004] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

Of course, there's Robin Williams, who is miscast as a retarded janitor, but if viewers are willing to overlook this, they might find much to like in this innocent and quite tenderhearted look at growing up in New York in the 1970's.

Tom Warshaw (David Duchovny) is an American artist living in Paris who decides to tell his French wife the story of his checkered and audacious past, which involves his encounter with the House of D, an old Women's House of Detention in Greenwich Village. On the cusp of 13, the young Tommy (Anton Yelchin) strikes up an acquaintance with one of its inmates, Lady (Erykah Badu), who shouts down advice to him from her solitary confinement in the massive, now demolished Romanesque Revival landmark.

Tommy needs all the advice he can get. His father died a year earlier, leaving Katherine, his mother (a fabulous Téa Leoni) despondent enough that he regularly checks her sleeping pill supply to make sure she's not overdoing it. She also smokes too much, and is having a hard time getting over the death of her husband. She sometimes behaves inappropriately or thoughtlessly around Tommy - such as using the bathroom when he's taking a shower.

His best pal Pappass (Robin Williams) is a middle-aged, mildly retarded man who works as a janitor at Tommy's parochial school, and with whom Tommy delivers meat for a local butcher. But Tommy is getting older and is gradually drifting away from his protective mother and his innocent best friend.

When he falls for Melissa, (Zelda Williams), a girl in his class, he is torn between being the man of the house in his mother's crumbling life and living out his own descent to adulthood. It is through his street corner conversations with Lady, who gives him the no-nonsense encouragement to finally realize his dreams. Lady yells advice out the window of her cell, seeing the boy only through the reflection in a piece of broken glass.

House of D is very sentimental but it's also good-natured, sweet and innocent, and there's no doubt that Duchovny has an earnest love for the time period and the material. Much of what takes place in House of D is a bit of stretch, to say the least, but it's clear that Duchovny wants his film to be seen as a rite of passage fable about how boys must discover what it means to be a man and what it takes to become one. Duchovny is mostly on the right track with showing how fragile the day-to-day existence is for Tommy and his mother.

The real reason to see the film is Anton Yelchin. Anton is an absolute revelation and he is able to genuinely articulate the inner thoughts of an adolescent without making it seem as if he's just reciting the lines from a script. I'm not sure whether, Robin Williams was the right choice to portray the mentally challenged Pappass. However, he does avoid making Pappass into a joke or a divine fool dispensing unexpected wisdom. He's trying to navigate his own life and struggling as hard as Tommy. They are natural allies, which makes their conflict all the more poignant.

Tea Leoni and Erykah Badu are both strong in their supporting roles. Leoni is exemplary in showing the vulnerable and emotionally frail Katherine, and also has some great comedic scenes as the prying mother that many of us could probably relate to. As Leoni's character slips away, Tommy turns to Badu's Lady, and her performance is strong and also quite vulnerable; she's one of the most memorable characters in the film.

House of D is a film that takes a steadfastly gentle look at some of life's harshest moments as seen through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old boy. It's a well-acted and sensitive little movie that is pitched to an audience willing to remember the pain and confusion of first trying to make sense of the adult world. Mike Leonard October 05.

As the movie opens, the adult Tom Warshaw (David Duchovny), an American writer living in Paris, breaks a promise made to his 13-year old son, who lives with Dad's estranged wife Coralie (Magali Amadei), that the two go bike riding on the boy's birthday. The Missus is not pleased, and Tom explains that he was six hours late because he was born in the United States in New York City in Greenwich Village. Of course, this makes no sense. Tom's subsequent explanation is the extended flashback to his childhood in 1973, which comprises the major portion of the film's plot. Way back then, young Tommy (Anton Yelchin) lives with his emotionally manic, widowed mother (Tea Leoni), a chain smoking nurse who forces her son to eat Brussels sprouts for good health's sake. Tommy works part-time for a local butcher shop that delivers, a task done jointly with his best friend, the mentally retarded (uh, handicapped ... uh, challenged ... uh, whatever's currently PC) Pappass (Robin Williams), a forty-something man who's also the assistant janitor at Tommy's parochial college prep academy run by the benevolent and clueless Reverend Duncan (Frank Langella). Tommy has an awkward crush on a fellow student, rich girl Melissa (Zelda Williams). In the film's most unlikely scenes, Tommy gets Advice on Life and Love from "Lady Bernadette" (Erykah Badu), a Black hooker incarcerated in the local HOUSE OF D(etention). Bernadette's cell is on an upper story of the House. Tommy can only hear, but not see, his friend, who can only view Tommy's reflection in a piece of broken mirror she thrusts at arm's length out the window.

The best performances are by Williams, who proves once again his masterful ability to improvise just about any role imaginable, and that of Leoni- always a Babe in my book, whose character's tragic end, combined with Bernadette's encouragement, catalyzes Tommy's ultimately life-altering decision.

I wanted to like HOUSE OF D more than I eventually did by the time the credits rolled, though I admit to its occasional charm. I found young Tommy (and adult Tom, too) more annoying than engaging, particularly the manner by which the former funded his "run". I mean, how was that supposed to gain audience sympathy? And the boy's bizarre relationship with Lady Bernadette (and her pimp) was almost surreal in its unbelievability. Finally, I searched in vain for a lesson in this morality play, much less a link between the circumstances of Warshaw's birth and his being six hours late for a bike ride. Directed and written by David Duchovny, perhaps the storyline stems from events in his own life which he perceives as being more profound than he can ultimately convey to his audience.

HOUSE OF D is small screen entertainment ideal for a Sunday night prime time slot. Or wait for the DVD.