*Winner of the Bafta Wales Award for Best Costume Design*

1997
Director: Marc Evans

Cast:
Sian Phillips
Steven Mackintosh
Lisa Palfrey
Matthew Rhys

          Based on the original stage play, House of America is one of the new breed of Welsh films which owe more to Iain Banks than Dylan Thomas.

          The Lewis family, Mam, Sid, Boyo, and Gwenny, live in Banwen, a two-bit town in the wilds of Wales' industrial south. Mam (Phillips) is eccentric bordering on insane, Boyo (Rhys) wants a life, and Sid (Mackintosh) and Gwenny (Palfrey) want to tread in the footsteps of their hero, Jack Kerouac, and find their runaway father in the U.S. Sadly for Sid and Gwenny, the fantasy gets out of hand and life for the Lewis's will never be the same again.

          House of America features fabulous soundtrack which includes The Manic Street Preachers, Blur, Lou Reed and Tom Jones.



University of Nottingham's Student Magazine, Impact
Sarah Miles

          A beautiful but hopeless fight against circumstance and the death of an American dream in a by-passed Welsh town says the blurb. Mmm. Another grim tale about sheep, mountains and the spirit of the valley think I, but nevertheless march dutifully down to London, complimentary coffee in hand, to meet director Marc Evans and stars Matthew Rhys (Boyo) and Steven Mackintosh (Sid) to find out exactly what new Welsh film, House of America, is all about . . .

          Adapted from the original stage play by Ed Thomas, House of America deals with the cheery issues of financial despair, escapist fantasy, mental insanity, drug addiction and sibling incest. Not one for the kids then, but was director Marc Evans ever concerned about any negative representation of his beloved homelands ? Apparently not. This is his very own 'version of Wales set in Wales. Some say what about positive politics and the spirit of the valley? Yeah, what about it? That's great but it's not this story. Selecting a 'social realist' tone, Evans creates what he terms a 'tesco-bag film. Everything is as it is. And as we sit through a succession of personal tragedies, the application of this odd phrase becomes glaringly appropriate.

          Newcomer Matthew Rhys admits to 'shitting himself' at the prospect of starring in his feature-film debut but was taken under the wing of sole Englishman Steven Mackintosh (Blue Juice, Prime Suspect). Along with sister Gwenny, Sid yearns to escape to America to be reunited with his mysteriously absent father and is obsessed with Jack Keroac's novel, On the Road, taking the concept of role play to new extremes. But how did the actor feel about exploring this incestuous relationship? Mackintosh explains that whilst the love affair is not the focal point of the story, it is 'part of the messed-up world Sid's living in where dreams and reality and things are blurred. Right, try telling that to your brother when he walks in on you shagging your sister.

          One of the most striking elements of the film is the soundtrack featuring the Manics, Dubstar, Primal Scream and, of course, Tom Jones; a feature Evans is keen to highlight as essential to the overall effect: 'It might be just a Robin Reliant three-wheeler but driving through Welsh mountains with music blaring and suddenly youíre in you own film and you want to have sex in front of the kids in this bizarre fantasy land. Quite. And finally, it has to be asked: with recent success of Twin Town, can we expect Wales to become the Scotland of the indie film world in '97? Evans is reluctant to commit to any kind of label, pointing out that there's a lot more Welsh talent to follow. Truly beautiful yet intensely tragic, House of America is tinged with poetic lyricism that reaches points of poignancy to which other film-makers may only wistfully aspire. Pretentious voyages of self-discovery, maybe; slow-moving, inconsequential plot, yes; harrowing social commentary, definitely; yet haunting images combined with powerful, heartfelt performances do more than compensate in this gem of a movie.


This is London
Alexander Walker
October 16, 1997

Manic street features

          Like Twin Town, about disoriented tearaways in Swansea creating havoc Hollywood-style, House of America is anxious to disown traditional Welshness. But before you throw out the daffs, druids and Dylan Thomas, you'd best have something fresh to put in their place.

          Edward Thomas's play overlaid the narrow miserablism of the natives with the expansive mythology of the American Beats, and it may have worked on stage. In the cinema's unforgiving realism, it only adds a portentous dottiness to its dysfunctional family's already manic antics. Brother and sister Sid and Gwenny (Steven Mackintosh and Lisa Palfrey), perpetually high on drink and drugs, play at being the Beat poet Jack Kerouac and his girlfriend Joyce Johnson, harass the hard hats in the open-cast quarry that's eating further and further into national identity, and bring a touch of The Wild One to the sodden countryside by roaring around it on a Harley-Davidson, wearing sun specs in the rain.

          Meanwhile Mam (Sian Phillips) has taken Tennessee Williams as her role model and is going off her head. One sympathises with Boyo (Matthew Rhys), the sane son who doesn't believe that when good Welshmen die they go to America. Director Marc Evans, making his film debut, rejigs the waterlogged scene imaginatively, creating a purpose-built clapboard house on a slagheap that has painterly affinities with Andrew Wyeth's rusticity. But this story of one culture pattern being imposed on another is tortuous, and ultimately tedious. Murder and incest render it additionally ridiculous.




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