Rating: 
Summary: ...
Review: I have not yet seen the movie, but i am a huge fan of Hayden. i'm on my dad's name, but i'm 14 and i've been a HUGE fan of Higher Ground since it started and Star wars are my favorite movies and I love Natalie portman! so i'm really anxious to see this movie and i love hayden! haha!
Rating: 
Summary: Focused fiction with some good extractions from reality
Review: This movie demonstrated some very complex dynamics involving a Father Son (Rebellious Teenager) relationship. George (played by Kevin Kline) needed to reconcile the inherited errors of his father by resolving his estranged relationship with his Son. Sam (played by Hayden Christensen) did an excellent job portraying a confused adolescent in dire need of some dedicated parental attention. Sam's apprehension to accept any parental love was frankly a well defined page out of both teenager and parent's diary. The relationship between the confused teenager and the flawed parents presents realistic complexities. The story line in of itself was good. The additional entertainment of some obscure relationships acting as a theatrical counterpoint to the main line of the story was quite weak and a waste of film time in this reviewers opinion. Unfortunately it is understandable that the director may deem these scenes necessary to maintain the commercial film standard.
I would suggest that it is worth seeing as well as enables the audience an opportunity to grab some more popcorn when those inconsequential fillins pop up with out missing much.
Rating:
Summary: This was great!
Review: I really did enjoy this movie. Hayden Christenson and Kevin Kline gave excellent performances. I believe that they may both be nominated for some Oscars this year. This was a great drama and I highly reccomend it. It is very touching. One of the best this year!
Rating: 
Summary: Terribly primitive and poorly sentimental
Review: My title reflects my opinion. If you are not a soap opera lover and value real cinema then forget about this - spare your nerves. A sentimental Hollywood melodrama with faceless music sawing your nerves throughout the entire movie (it doesn't stop !!!).
Rating:
Summary: great life drama
Review: This was on the most wonderful studies of life as we live it.
Kevin Kline was excellent in this academy award performance.
Do not miss this feature film, it will make you laugh and cry.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Movie
Review: This movie was based on a child that didnt really get along with his father and its about him and his father getting to no eachother well building a house.Honestly this was the based movie i have seen i cried i laughed i cheered anyone would liek this movie it has a bit of everything and i would die to meat Hayden Christensen!!He was great no other movie could be better he was PERFECT for the part i always that that he was PERFECT for the part in strike BUT he was better in this movie than anyother movie he has ever played in.The neighbor was the best for the part as well she was smart prissey but nice and intelligent and pretty. George and the Mother were great! I recomend this movie 2 EVERY ONE please if u take ur time to read thi s please watch it it is worth it BELIVE ME!!!!! This movie teaches you alot bout life and watch it see what u can learn!!
Rating:
Summary: Most excellent movie!
Review: Huge Oscar potential for Kevin Kline! It was facinating to see him so realistically portray a man with terminal cancer trying to finish things he left undone over a lifetime in the span of a few months. It was also somewhat painful to see him so thin as he never had much extra weight to spare. I think the high points of the movie were the quiet moments he had with his ex-wife, and the great advice he gives to his son. The three of them work so wonderfully together you could swear they had known each other for years. A touching and wonderful movie, see it, you won't be sorry!
Rating:
Summary: a nearly complete rip off of American Beauty
Review: This movie could've been great. I was looking forward to it for months. Hayden Christenson was the only bright side to this movie, in full punk attire no less. Then towards the end he became to resemble a logger or something to that flannel clad extent. Metaphores were slammed down viewers throats without need. Life As A House basically took American Beauty, mixed in some Story of Us, and California-ed better movies. The neighbor girl was entirely unbelieveable.
The movie still has potential to be great if you get rid of the script and start over, get a new director and camera man (due to the excessive montages), keep hayden as the punk but don't de-punk him and keep the mother, but lose everyone else and the origional footage.
Rating:
Summary: This Years Best Film!
Review: Today I went to the movies and i went to see this film with out even knowing it. At first i was going to see "Spy games" but then i missed that by 20 mins. so i went to see "Life as a house" and i was stunned by this film its was great i havnt seen a movie this good this hole year. this is a movie that makes people think about life and how you should live each day like its your last day by enjoying life as you like to enjoy it, Keving Kline was great in this film he had great diolog excusse my spelling lol and his acting has never been better there were also some great suporting roles that make this movie move if you get a chance please go see this movie it was great!
Rating:
Summary: Kline and Thomas are the reasons to watch
Review: LIFE AS A HOUSE has as its premise that hard work and responsibility will reshape for the better the most incorrigible of teenagers. Joining the Marines will do it. Alternatively, build a house. Kevin Kline plays terminal cancer patient George, who violently quits his job with an architectural firm and decides to spend his last months rebuilding his house. "House" is a grand overstatement. It's actually a run-down shack that sits incongruously and improbably (oh, puh-leeze!) amidst million-dollar homes perched on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean washing Southern California's Gold Coast. I've seen similar dilapidated structures along back roads in the Deep South. In any case, George wants to spend this time with his teenage son, Sam, who otherwise lives with George's former wife Robin (Kristin Scott Thomas) and her latest husband, bland Peter. Sam is a self-loathing, skin-pierced, drug-ridden, hostile young man who has alienated every member of his natural and foster families. George believes that several months spent in his custody demolishing the old shack and building a new abode will turn Sam's life around. Getting Sam to join the Marines would probably have been easier. LIFE AS A HOUSE is a tangle of relationships, all of which are predictable. George has a forty-something next door neighbor, Coleen, who is the single mother of teenage Alyssa. (Mary Steenburgen, playing Coleen, is still a Looker in black lingerie.) After George's break-up with Robin years before, George and Coleen had an affair. Now, Coleen seduces her daughter's boyfriend, Josh, while Alyssa makes coy sexual advances to both George and Sam, the latter's hostility faltering in the face of reluctantly resurgent hormones. I mean, how LA! Only the bittersweet relationship between George and Robin has substance. Indeed, the performances of Kline and Thomas vis-à-vis each other are what elevate this film above mediocrity, and Kline's is perhaps the best of his career - certainly worth an Oscar nomination. The audience will find the George and Robin characters eminently decent and likable - just the kind of people you'd love to have over for an afternoon barbecue and schmooze by the pool. In many ways, this film is a shameless tearjerker of only moderate depth. However, I'm not too proud to admit that I liked it anyway.
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