The Hotel New Hampshire Reviews

This dreary satire of the post-war American family has a small but devoted following. Writer-director Tony Richardson has constructed a complex screenplay based on an even more convoluted novel by John Irving. It's a fairy tale about virtually everything and, as such, will not satisfy everybody. The film is laced with blackly humorous takes on heterosexuality, homosexuality, incest, abandonment, Nazism, masochism--a veritable laundry list of contemporary neuroses. Father (Beau Bridges) and Mother (Lisa Banes) are the parents of a remarkable family in New England. Their children include John (Rob Lowe), a high school student; Franny (Jodie Foster), the eldest daughter and the victim of a gang rape; Frank (Paul McCrane), the gay brother; and Lilly (Jennie Dundas), the little sister. Freud (Wallace Shawn), a family friend, asks them to babysit his pet bear while he goes off to Europe before WW II. After the war, we rejoin Freud, who has been blinded by the Nazis and is running a decidely unusual hotel in Vienna--the Hotel New Hampshire. Father, Mother, and family arrive to help run the place, encountering a rogues' gallery of eccentric guests. Seemingly random adventures and rather precious narrative twists ensue.