In an attempt to escape her troubled life, Eileen (Lili Taylor) rents a house in the middle of nowhere where she can write her next novel, and where the rest of the world will leave her alone. The Winter House, however, attracts a mysterious young man who will soon have a profound effect on Eileen’s life. What will she do with the opportunity?
The Winter House is sort of dark throughout its entirety, even in the daytime. Eileen is in a dark place in her life, even if we aren’t entirely sure what that place is. As the film develops we learn more and more about her, but the fact that the film remains so dark from beginning to end allows viewers into her life, allows them to appreciate what is going on in her life, even if we aren’t fully in the know yet. Writer-Director Keith Boynton effectively uses this darkness to guide his film–and in more ways than one.
He sets the tone early, and that tone shifts only for seconds at a time–but the drama and intensity remains heavy and thick throughout. By setting that tone early, and by constantly reminding viewers of the emotional state in which Eileen has found herself, viewers feel fully invested in her story. By definitively deciding the gravity of the story, and effectively conveying these things to viewers, The Winter House sets itself up for success in the early going, and it never looks back. We get bits of humor, romance, and more–but the heavy dramatic elements strewn throughout the course of The Winter House are what (ironically) shine the brightest.
Eileen is a writer, and while that’s not always considered a commendable profession, Boynton uses this as a vehicle for emotion. Viewers often receive the heavy emotional pieces during Eileen’s writing sessions or during her awkward poetry readings with Jesse (François Arnaud), and in those moments the emotion hits the hardest. Viewers are almost forced to fall in love with the fact that Eileen is a writer as a result of how profound her understanding of poetry and literature is–and The Winter House bursts at the seams with emotion as a result.
The Winter House is like Walden meets I Am Legend (in a less-apocalyptic way), where a writer makes their way out into nature and deals with the fallout of some major life event. Eileen remains front and center throughout the course of The Winter House, and in a lot of ways she’s tasked with being the person that makes drama and emotion possible. Arnaud is brilliant in his performance, but Taylor is effectively the catalyst in all of this–ensuring that everyone and everything else is successful. Maybe my comparisons are a bit wild (at least my comparison to I Am Legend), but the intensity that exists in films of that nature exist here in The Winter House as well. Boynton does a wonderful job of bringing this touching film to life, and just about every bit of it effectively reaches audiences.
Written & Directed by Keith Boynton.
Starring Lili Taylor, François Arnaud, Beth Fowler, Hunter Emery, & Stephen C. Bradbury.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/10
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