By Maggie Trinkle

Arizona Daily Wildcat

Meryl Streep just has a way about her.

She is the only actress who can levitate tables and move flowers telepathically and make the viewer believe that ÒThe House of the SpiritsÓ truly exists. The film is a mystic, mature take on immortality.

The film, based on a novel of the same name by Isabel Allende, has subtle, heart-warming humor.

The viewer is introduced to Clara (Meryl Streep) as a child. And although the film follows Clara through the entirety of her morally flawless life, the viewer does not find her prudish or snobby. Streep plays a perfect character (one which could have easily turned into a condescending role) to the point that she is endeared by every viewer in the theater.

The viewer goes in to see ÒThe House of the SpiritsÓ thinking she is going to see the chronicles of a family from the 1920s to the Õ70s in Mexico. Instead, the viewer sits down to a movie with underlying themes of honesty, sin, and the world of rotten-souled people, all wound up in the building plot of the early 20th century Mexican political

Jeremy IronsÕ character, Esteban, has only one redeeming action in the whole movie. If youÕre an Irons fan, it will dispel most of the dashing qualities he developed in ÒKafka.Ó This character is even more of a bastard than IronsÕ Oscar-winning Claus Van Bulo in ÒReversal of Fortune.Ó Esteban rapes, oppresses, whips, and has kept his daughter away from her true love, Pedro (Antonio Banderas), since

Esteban sends his sister, Ferula (Glenn Close) away when he feels that she has grown too close to Clara. The role of Ferula is different than any of CloseÕs other roles in that Ferula is the martyred woman who is continually oppressed, and treated horribly Ñ and Ferula does nothing to stop it,

The breaking point of the revolution comes at ClaraÕs funeral Ñ done in an artistic and tear-provoking way. Music is going, the camera is flashing through floods of flowers and black-dressed mourners and ClaraÕs daughter Blanca (Winona Ryder) begins to look around at all the people and instead of seeing all the people in mourning clothes around her she begins to see more and more uniformed soliders nodding. Before the funeral scene would naturally come to an end the viewer is shown hideous images of tanks, ~jump~

~mid~ and guns.

Ryder does a decent job for her purpose Ñ crying because (again) she has been denied her only true love. After all, Ryder is the unrequited-love queen who unrealistically always gets reunited with her lovers in every film. Her stuffy-nosed narration in the movie was one of the downpoints of the film.

ÒThe House of the SpiritsÓ not only exsists, it remains like a heaven long after the viewer has seen it, mainly because of StreepÕs magical performance.

ÒThe House of the SpiritsÓ is playing at Century Gateway Read Next Article