House of Cards

Although there are some parts of the plot where you might say "Yeah, right", those are mostly incidental. It's a really nice story and I actually give Tommy Lee Jones credit for keeping the tone for the most part subtle! Nice score, maybe a little "normal Hollywood tearjerker" style, but still nice.

I prefer to see it as a poetic film. I teach in classes with autistic students, I was confronted with some cases . But, in same measure I am seduced by fairy tales. The death of father can reate strong refuges. And, in this film, the refuge is just well projected. Because it is a film about a six years old girl, in touch with Mayan myth - a myth reminding the stories about the rabbit on the moon from my childhood - admirable acting, moving end . A film about truth, with few unrealistic pink parts but real nice for understand, in fair manner, the other.

This is one of the best movies I've seen and I'm shocked at the ratings it has received. I found it hidden in the back room at the video store because so few customers were checking it out. 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. Please don't let the ratings keep you from deciding for yourself!

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. The child was NOT austistic. 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.

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. How they are put together is flawed, and it lacks the subtleties and hooks of any Medem script. But it's a glorious try, a world of connections of all sorts.

The first gate to this world are the Maya pyramids, so carefully photographed in the clever initial sequence in Mexico. 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). What you get is the beautiful idea of a physical structure as the metaphor for a spiritual link, and the act of building as a symbol of reaching for someone. This is underscored by the seemingly shared dream between our girls, which i found pretty lame. So the result is a sort of maternal built love. You have to love it!