Housekeeping

Housekeeping is the film in which Christine Lahti invites a guest into a living room half-submerged in water. This is hardly the oddest moment in this characteristically quirky Bill Forsyth film (his first American production). When their grandmother dies, Idaho pre-teens Sarah Walker and Andrea Burchill are watched over by their late mother's sister (played by Ms. Lahti). This strange young woman has throughout her life made unconventionality a life form. The girls are at first embarrassed by their loopy aunt, but when Burchill moves in with another family, Walker draws closer to the older woman. They hit the road, where Lahti has spent most of her life, and experience several picaresque episodes before the more sober-sided Burchill informs the authorities about their vagabond lifestyle. Threatened with losing custody of Walker, Lahti makes an effort to clean up her act, but by this time her niece has become just as endearingly unpredictable as she. Director Forsyth adapted his script from a novel by Marilynne Robinson.