House of Cards

Plot synopsis:
Reno Davis (George Peppard) is an American writer who has recently retired from boxing. Now unemployed and broke in France, he finds the wealthy widow of a French general. Anne de Villemont (Inger Stevens) is attracted to Reno's stoicism and they become lovers. She also hires him to tutor her eight-year-old son Paul (Barnaby Shaw).
Reno is led to believe Anne's husband was killed in the Algerian conflict and is troubled by Anne's intense fear that Paul will be kidnapped. He then discovers the family has ties to a fascist organization that plans to take over all of Europe. He takes on the shady psychiatrist Morillon (Keith Michell) and mysterious family friend Leschenhaut (Orson Welles), both of whom scare Anne whenever they are around.
Reno is framed for his best friend's murder as he and Anne become the targets of the ambitious and maniacal schemers who wish to rule the entire European continent. Reno and Anne are hunted and chased around France while protecting Paul from being abducted. The chase ends at the Coliseum in Rome, where Reno and the villains engage in a showdown.

Tags: fantasy, psychological

Review:
I agree that Tommy Lee Jones has been better in other movies but the story is excellent and the portrayal of the story is very well done.
And this movie deals with taking us to a different world of a child going into a different world.
This movie is very interesting to watch and the characters are well-acted by Kathleen Turner and Tommy Lee Jones.
It's a good movie, but people should know: this is not about autism.I have an autistic daughter.
Even in regressive autism, which is not that common, you don't just become autistic through emotional trauma, as this movie suggests.
Her seeming imperviousness to danger is autistic-like and the screams when things change is something that can happen, but please don't come away from this movie thinking this is what autism is.Many autistic children are not silent and do interact or try to.
Take note of the scenes at the school with real autistic children to get a somewhat better picture.This movie is more about emotional trauma than autism.
But what's worse is then leading the viewer to believe simple psychological intervention will "fix" autism.The one good thing is that the movie shows autistics to be bright and very creative.
If you are the kind of person who requires movies even tangentally reflect how it is in the real world then don't watch it.
Everyone I know thinks this movie is weird, until I make them rewatch the beginning and pay close attention.
Then they love it.Whoever trashed this movie regarding the autism obviously did not watch it.
She was trying to handle her father's death with things she learned from her Mayan archaeologist friend.I think if you have any brain in your head and have an attention span large enough to actually watch the whole movie, it is thoroughly enjoyable..
To address those who have said, sometimes rather heatedly, that it is obvious that the girl is NOT autistic and anyone who thinks otherwise is foolish (or at least has a short attention span) please consider this:If it were obvious from the beginning of the movie that the girl is suffering from an odd denial response brought on by a shaman's comments, and not an identifiable disorder, then the bulk of the movie would be meaningless.
What would be the point of all the medical scenes with the use of apparently handicapped (including autistic) children if the viewer already "knows" the girl's problem?The girl displays very striking features of childhood autism, so on what basis is it reasonable that the mother should resist treatment?
You can say: "you see, it wasn't really autism," but as a simple dramatic point they don't give anyone but the guileless moviegoer any reason to think otherwise.People with handicapped children often wish that anyone giving them bad news is wrong, and that there is a simple "magic" cure for their child's disorder, and so the movie unintentionally gives very bad advice.I feel it is shameful for the movie makers to have used a disability and disabled people as props for a feelgood story that denies reality as much as the little girl does..
There is no doubt that somewhere out there there is someone who loved this film, who adores it and watches it all the time, fed up by the bad reviews.
I rented it because of Tommy Lee Jones and Kathleen Turner, and the movie taught me a valuable lesson: listen to the critics and DON'T rent a movie that looks bad because of two stars in it.
Tommy Lee Jones was totally wasted- having nothing to work with- except his frustration at a know it all mom.
The whole thing was a spielbergesque schmaltzfest of embarrassing proportions, and what flabbergasts me is that so many people seem to embrace it on so many levels, as if it actually had something meaningful to say.It is insulting that they should be able to take a condition such as autism (which the child doesn't have but the movie wants you to think she does) and trivialize it and make it the centrepiece of a maudlin, unrealistic dumbed down piece of soap drama.The eponymous house of gravity-defying cards itself could not, by any stretch, have been built by a 6-year-old, or anyone else.
The part of the film that stays with me is when Tommy Lee Jones's character states that a lot of autistic children are misdiagnosed as crack babies or something else....even demonic possession.
The great things about this film make me forget the obvious concessions to box office: the uselessness of Tommy Lee's over dramatic character, or the cheesy ending.The beauty of this is all in the multiple structures presented to us, both physically and metaphorically, and how they are layered in such a way that moving one affects all the others, like a house of cards.
There we are given key concepts to interpret the whole thing: The ascending dynamic of this (highly spiritual) shape, the tragedy of the father's death, which triggers the whole plot, and the moon – introduced in a clumsy way, as the cosmic witness to the tragedy and as some old folk Indian tale.Later we fold the idea of the abstract structure that is the "key" to our girl's mind into the idea of a physical shape, that of a spiral, conceptually close to the conception of a Maya pyramid.
The girl actually builds the thing, using common cards and some Tarot cards, providing us another key to another abstract structured cosmic world: metaphorical links between cards and several realities; a whole cosmology of its own.In between you get hints at other parallel, strong structures: 1 – before becoming an autist the girl spoke three languages; 2 – trees she climbs them, repeating the ascending movement, and she disguises herself as one she becomes it!; 3 – the construction site and the crane, an obvious reference, as it is the fact that the mother is an engineer, a designer of structures (the 3d stuff does sound middle- aged to our BIM days)The spiral is replicated in a greater scale by the mother, she actually builds her own gate to her daughter (building up for the obvious climax).
The plot, which involves a mother's journey to try to reach her young daughter after she has developed autistic-like characteristics, is hard nut to crack.
Even stage vet Kathleen Turner and the excellent Tommy Lee Jones can't save this film from the highly symbolic mess it is.
Do mothers know more than doctors?I found this movie enjoyable.
i was kind of little of the time and not to hard to impress but it was a great movie.That is all I had to say but it seems i need 10 lines and I don't think I can think enough to produce another 6 lines so...I voted mainly for the soundtrack...
i was kind of little of the time and not to hard to impress but it was a great movie.That is all I had to say but it seems i need 10 lines and I don't think I can think enough to produce another 6 lines so....
there are some awesome scenes and to share it would ruin watching the movie.basically the childs parents are arhciologists and her father dies at a dig site.
shes a child so she believes it.the mother not knowing what to do with her self decides to take the girl back to America..
(bad move on my thought the girl just lost her father and now suffers culture shock!) but thats what makes a movie right?
any who i really love this movie and think you should try it out!.
I can understand upset parents who have to live with their own private horror and know it will last whole life through (without miracles after waking up), but in the end it is clearly shown this was not a case of autism.
(I don't remember anyone objecting "Tommy", by the way, maybe because it's much more symbolic than the realistic "House of cards".) And traumas for children are often also trauma for adults (parents) who sometimes don't let the physician know the whole truth.
If their glorify different kinds of magicians and a real doctor can never be heard, let alone become a hero, you can expect parents with lack of belief and very much ready to try another approach, no matter how useless, unsuccessful and even harmful (at least because it means losing precious time).
So however unrealistic and hard to watch for real autistic children's parents, this film is honest, even realistic (parents who believe their doctors must understand that there really exist parents who don't!) - and (last but not least) this film is good as a film.
If one believes in the ability of children to read more about the intangible side of people than adults can then the writers selecting a such a scene to share with viewers about Mohicans also shows the child's ability to connect with another person who shared her lack of fear for heights, besides just this mans color of skin (similar to what she had experienced at the archaeological site where this child's father was killed in a falling accident).
Those who've read and appreciated C.J. Laing, may really have an extra appreciation for this movies as well as those who believe in being way more careful about the human-freedom-rights of so-called mental patients by first exercising a little more intuition and empathy before applying their force and trickery to mandate, NOW, their coming-back to a world they had chosen to leave!
Whether or not to trust or believe in the ability of medical professionals to help our precious children and whether or not a parent is a better judge of a young child's condition than the professional.
In these days of movie blockbusters and sensationalized story-telling, it is very rare that a movie can be as timeless and thought provoking as this one while attempting to get the viewer to think about modern issues in non-traditional ways.
This movie shows the length a mother will go to bring her child back from the so called dead-(after she loses her father she turns inward and becomes obsessed with seeing him again) she wants her daughter back so much she furiously works day and night to build this beautiful monument to the sky.
Having seen 'House of Cards' a number of times now, I never fail to find this film a involving and intriguing on every viewing.
The film revolves around the Ruth Matthews, whose husband dies in a fall and who risks also losing her six-year-old daughter Sally when she retreats into her own world falling the death of her father.
As child psychologist Jake determines that the best way to treat Sally is to use therapies similar to how he counsels his autistic patients, Ruth resorts to more eccentric methods of reaching out to her daughter.A number of people seem to dislike 'House of Cards' because they feel it portrays easy cures to autism.
However, like other fans of the film, I never believed Sally was autistic but instead was deeply grief-stricken and mentally withdrew from the traumatic world around her, taking on autistic-like traits, so she could try to devise ways to contact her dead father.
This theory meant that, for me, this film was not about autism but rather a family coping with loss and grief in different ways and that was what made it both touching and engaging.The adult actors-- Kathleen Turner who played Ruth and Tommy Lee Jones who played Jake-- were both brilliant and you genuinely felt that they both loved this child and were determined to do to whatever it took to help her, albeit in different ways.
For such a young child, Asha Menina was perfect in portraying Sally's emotional distance as she retreated into her own little world.
And Shiloh Strong delivered a strong performance as Sally's teenage brother, who was fiercely devoted to his mother and sister and determined to be the man of the family.This film truly succeeded in reminding us that young children can view death very differently from adults and in showing us that there tradition psychological treatments are not always right for everybody.
Exactly 44 minutes into the film Ruth tells the doctor her daughter is NOT autistic.
They are BOTH right - but in the end it's the mother (who is herself "special") who has the better instincts - and it's that wondrous architectural "House of Cards" that ultimately brings her daughter back.Key scenes?
From her fearless internal world she was able to do what most of us cannot.All of the actors were terrific, but I think Tommy Lee Jones' portrayal of the troubled doctor was superlative, as most of his portrayals are.If you decide to give this film a shot - PLEASE - pay real attention to the details.
We hear Sally's memories as narration, the Mayan man that she spent so much time with telling her how to become very quiet, how to deal with her grief, and that her father now lives on the moon.
The family leaves for the States shortly after the father's death, so this little girl who has only really known the people at the site is taken from an extended support system to a rural American setting.
As she begins to exhibit extraordinary powers like climbing and throwing or catching a ball with freakish ability, the brother notices but doesn't really tell their mom.Sally's "symptoms" create concern in the local authorities when she climbs up building equipment trying to reach the moon, where she's been told her father is now.
In the end, the mother, played by Kathleen Turner, follows her instinct and builds a tower based on the design of Sally's house of cards.
No one in the movie understands how it happens or why, so if you aren't familiar with Native American spirituality, it won't make sense - though it is still poetic and beautiful, if you let go of trying to make it fit your expectations.
SPOILER ALERT****************************************** I actually don't know if I give away too much but I am putting the alert here just to be safe.As a mom of a little boy with autism, I was drawn to this movie and come back again from time to time.
But like in this movie when you look at the parents and teachers working so hard, it is on the little things you take for granted.
But when the ordinary things happen like the boy at the school hugging his mom for the first time, that is when we parents shout for joy and hoot and holler in celebration.Dealing with a child with autism is like putting together a giant puzzle with infinite pieces.
And since the number of pieces are infinite, you don't get a neat little picture on the box that lets you know exactly how things should look and you work towards that.
First of all, let me add to what other reviewers have said by repeating that Sally, the little girl, was NOT autistic.
The best we can offer is psychology, but Kathleen Turner as Sally's mother instinctively knew that putting her child through a course of standard treatment would result in turning her daughter's psyche into "healthy shards." At the same time, I think the movie did an excellent job treading delicate ground by pointing out the flaw in using one approach (the psychological-treatment approach) for all emotional problems known and unknown, without condemning psychology itself, which has in fact given real help to countless people.Having said that, I have to add that the ending was both too tidy and too mysterious for my taste.
Pay attention to what the movie is actually saying rather than trying to impose what you think it should say, and you will be rewarded for your efforts..
This movie has nothing to do with autism, (I noticed a reference to that in other comments from viewers) they pretty much thrust you into the movie, the girl is traumatized by her fathers death, (which she didn't see) and the idea is given at the end that the girl is able to see her fathers death through her mother when she is looking at her (telepathy?) and suddenly, she's healed!
And the work goes on.Parents of disabled children need to fully participate in their child's education and therapy, and not take as scripture every word professionals say.
If one parent fails to get appropriate therapy for his or her disabled child because of this movie, it will have performed an unintended evil.I suppose the filmmakers could weasel out by saying that the girl portrayed in the film wasn't really autistic, she suffered from some kind of trauma-induced hysteria, which COULD be cured by unconventional means.
The girl constructs a huge tower of cards around her one morning, and Turner takes lots of pictures of it before it collapses.
How do you make a movie about a child with autism while basically dodging all information about subject?
Here is a movie that tries to softsoap this disease with lame visuals, overcooked dialogue and an ending that left my attention focusing on the digital soundtrack of 'Jurassic Park' which was bleeding through the walls from the theater next door.Kathleen Turner (one of my favorite actresses) plays a woman whose husband has died and whose autistic daughter has retreated into her own private world.
Every time there was a scene at the clinic where Tommy Lee Jones works, I kept wishing that the camera to move past him and start focusing on one of those real autistic children behind him.The mystery of autism is a good subject for a drama, just look at Rain Man. But that film was about the relationship between two brothers.
Every time this film needs to settle down and uncover the mystery it would come up with some lame scene so that the writer won't have to think.