Chapter forty-four: The House of Spirits

Hello all! Winter Break is upon us: two weeks of celebration and recuperation before the new year. I have no new goals. I'm content with the projects I took on at the beginning of the decade and look forward to finishing them before starting something new. I guess that's a goal within itself. In any case, I will relish these next two weeks, and I hope you do too. As I write this now, I'm wearing the softest turtleneck. I bought it yesterday, and I seriously think it's the softest thing I've ever owned, but that's irrelevant information. Throughout the holidays, I plan to use my downtime to blog more than once a week and just felt that was worth mentioning. Anyway, happy holidays; let's get started with today.

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Okay, so, The House of Spirits is a movie that tells a story spanning three generations of the same family. It is based on a book of the same title by Isabel Allende. I'm going to be honest, I do not feel as though I fully understand this movie in all of its glory because a lot of time passes throughout the duration of the film. It also takes place in Chile, South America, which I did not realize at the time, so clearly, geography is not my strong suit. Nonetheless, the time that passes allows the characters to develop and, I, at least, got lost into thinking that the "movie magic" was real. This is what I got from it:

A little girl named Clara del Valle (Grace Gummer; Meryl's daughter) was born into a wealthy, ruling family and Clara herself has the exceptional ability to see into the future. One night, at a celebratory dinner for the country, Clara's sister drinks some poison that was supposed to kill her father instead. Clara knew something bad was going to happen but didn't know what. Enveloped by guilt, she makes a promise to herself to never speak again. In this way, Clara builds her own world but never stops observing her surroundings. Clara's older sister was set to marry Esteban Trueba (Jeremy Irons,) but news of her death has prompted him to marry Clara if, and only if, he returns when she is of appropriate age to have children and promises to care for her. They meet years later, and Estaban has intentions to propose to a grown Clara (Meryl.) It's only here that Clara breaks her decades-long silence with the sentence,

"You have come to propose marriage to me?"

They marry, and Clara becomes good friends with Esteban's sister, Ferula (Glenn Close.) Ferula is unmarried and has had to give up a lot of opportunities in her lifetime so that her younger brother could succeed. Esteban is not in the least bit appreciative of her sacrifices. Carla is very delicate and observant and has been all of her life. Through these gifted traits, she shows Ferula the sort of kindness that no one else has. Meanwhile, Esteban begins to fall for Clara's personality traits, not just because she bears a resemblance to her sister. So, Ferula's desireful closeness to her makes him even angrier.

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Esteban and Clara eventually have a daughter, Blanca (Hannah Taylor-Gordon.) As Blanca grows up (Winona Ryder,) she becomes romantically involved with a man whose father her father doesn't get along with politically. Therefore, Esteban forbids the relationship. Ferula has since died and having no one to suffer the brunt of his anger, Esteban blames Clara for Blanca's upbringing and hits her (hard.) Clara vows never to speak to Estaban again, and she keeps that vow.

Feeling isolated by his wife and daughter, Esteban goes away for a while to start a political campaign and clear up some financial business with his illegitimate son from years earlier. His political campaign as Senator for The Republic is successful and when he returns to his family, he has a granddaughter, Alba, whom he adores. He reconciles with Blanca and and Clara, and the family is more or less complete again. (Clara still refrains from speaking to Esteban but enjoys his company.)

Alba's father is Pedro. (The man whom Esteban does not approve of but now has to live with.) Pedro is in some trouble with the authorities in terms of citizenship which puts the entire family in trouble. Ultimately, Esteban's financial status and political past protect the family, but not without some moral and psychological tarnish. Honestly, I couldn't give you a clear synopsis of the ending because, at this point in the movie, Clara has died, and that meant that I, at the time, had watched three, nearly consecutive, movies where Meryl "died," and I was not having it. I can tell you, however, that the film ends peacefully, as one would hope: Esteban has learned to swallow his pride for the sake of his family relationships before his death, and while the multi-generational story continues, the movie ends there.

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It's definitely a good movie, but it can be a little difficult to follow. I think it's a lusty tale about the balance between work, family, and the human spirit. I could be entirely wrong, but that's my interpretation, and writing about it has helped me comb through it more intensively.

As always, thank you for the entertainment, Meryl.