Hildy Good does not have a problem.
OK, she has lots of problems. But drinking, Hildy will tell you, is not among them.
And if you were Hildy, she might add, you’d drink, too.
She used to be a successful real estate agent—the top broker this side of Boston, she’ll be quick to remind you—before her family forced her to go to (ugh) rehab. When she got back, her former assistant had taken all her clients. Now Hildy’s in debt, barely able to afford payments for her shiny black Range Rover. If that’s not a problem calling for a little Merlot, what is? (Red ink pairs well with red wine, after all.)
Oh, and then there’s her ex-husband, who left her—after 22 years of marriage—for another man. Awkward? You bet it was. It took Hildy plenty of whisky to crawl out from underneath that setback.
And her kids. Both her daughters are all grown up, but Hildy thinks they should both grow a bit more. Tess is always so morose and critical. Emily is so flighty and dramatic. (And still squeezing her for money, by the way.) And both are incessantly worried that Hildy will start drinking again. What, don’t they trust her?
OK, maybe Hildy is drinking again. A little. She’d be happy to tell her kids so if they weren’t so judgy. And really, she hardly drinks at all. Just two, maybe three glasses a night. Well, sometimes, a little more. But only when she’s celebrating. Or flustered. Or sad. Only when she needs a little pick-me-up. A little liquid solace.
Did she say need? Psh. She doesn’t need alcohol. Just wants it sometimes. There’s a big difference. If she needed it—well, that’d be a problem.
But Hildy Good does not have a problem. Just ask her.
Obviously, Hildy does have a problem—even if it takes her, and perhaps even the moviegoer—time to understand that. The Good House presents itself as a comedy, but in many ways it’s more of a cautionary tale—reminding us of the lies we tell ourselves if and when we (or those we love) slip into substance abuse. And that, in itself, is valuable.
As Hildy’s story moves into a better place, she realizes that she’s struggling—not just with alcohol, but with other issues, too. And perhaps her unflagging New England reserve isn’t enough to carry her through. She gradually recognizes the need for a little help outside herself.
Frank Getchell, Hildy’s longtime friend and one-time beau, becomes a strong, positive force in Hildy’s life. Indeed, a flashback suggests that he’s been doing his best to help Hildy for years. He’s no teetotaler himself. So when Hildy starts drinking again, he doesn’t put the brakes to it. That said, he does tell her that he likes it when she doesn’t drink. And when she gets drunk, he does his best to keep her safe (even when Hildy gets mad at him for doing so).
One of Hildy’s ancestors (eight generations back, we hear) was Sarah Good, one of the first people accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials. (She was hung for those supposed crimes in 1692.) And Hildy, some insist, still has that witchy blood flowing through her, too.
People talk about how she can, apparently, read people’s minds—a skill she demonstrates at a dinner party. While she does give an impressive reading, a fellow guest attempts to debunk it. Hildy herself simply smiles, leaving guests to surmise whether it was all a trick or not. But she proves herself later as a savvy student of human nature—telling the camera that she knows as much about her clients after a quick walkthrough of their house as a psychologist might know after dozens of sessions. (She soon gives another “reading” that seems far more a product of her own insight than anything supernatural.)
Later, Hildy seems to be visited by a ghost with uncanny knowledge.
Hildy tells us that Frank was her “first,” but their relationship didn’t last. In a flashback, when Hildy was unhappily married—and drunk—she makes a pass at Frank, but Frank rejects her advances.
“You think I’m unattractive,” Hildy mopes.
“I think you’re married,” Frank says.
In the present, Hildy’s not married anymore. And when she swims both in her underwear and later strips off her top (we see the side of her breast), Frank sees her. It’s not long before the two launch into a sexual relationship—beginning with some unexpectedly passionate kissing and winding up in Hildy’s bed. We see them there together in the throes of sex (we see the side of Hildy’s breast but nothing else critical) in a scene that lasts … uncomfortably long. Afterward, an apparently naked Frank pulls back on his clothes, with everything critical hidden.
They kiss and hug and hang out in bed at other times, as well. But Frank once again rejects Hildy’s advances when she’s clearly so drunk she doesn’t know what she’s doing.
Hildy and her ex-husband kiss surprisingly passionately, too. (She scolds him for being gay, suggesting they could’ve had a great marriage otherwise.) Two married people have an affair (Hildy spots them kissing), and the two apparently talk about running off together.
Hildy takes a bath, and we see her from the shoulders up. Hildy’s assistant is often preoccupied with relational drama. A woman gardens in a rather flimsy (and cleavage-revealing) nightgown.
Hildy cracks a joke before she seems to read someone’s mind, asking the onlookers not to hang her as a witch. When she spies a rival realtor, someone tells her not to kill her on the streets. “Too many witnesses,” he says. Another gag involves a reference to “pistols at dawn.”
[Spoiler Warning] One morning, after Hildy drove home drunk and apparently blacked out the night before, Frank wakes her up and shows her the massive dent in her car hood. He tells her that a local boy has gone missing, and both worry that Hildy may have hit him. We learn that Hildy’s mom committed suicide. Someone drowns—also, apparently, an act of suicide.
Two f-words, four s-words and a few other profanities, including “a–,” “crap” and “d–n.” God’s name is misused seven times.
In flashback, we see Hildy walk into what she calls an “ambush”—an intervention by her concerned friends and family.
“If we’re really going to do this, I’m gonna need a drink,” she quips.
Hildy treats her drinking as one big joke. During the intervention, she downplays the fact that she’d dance with all of her daughter Emily’s friends. When her other daughter, Tess, scolds her for passing out in front of guests, Hildy says, “It’s called napping!” When someone reminds her of the DUI she was slapped with recdently, she claims she would’ve been just fine had she not hit that state trooper.
Because Tess threatens to take away Hildy’s babysitting rights, Hildy reluctantly goes to rehab. But by the time the movie starts, she’s started drinking again—first sneaking a glass or two or three of merlot, then spiking her supposedly non-alcoholic Bloody Mary, then drinking secretly in her cellar, then getting very drunk after closing a big deal.
It’s funny, and then it’s not. Perhaps just like drinking problems are in real life. Because so much of the story revolves around alcohol and Hildy’s relationship to it, it’s impossible to detail every scene involving the stuff. But it’s clear that until the bitter end, Hildy thinks her drinking is eminently manageable.
The Good House also reminds us that alcoholism often runs in families. During the intervention, Hildy tells us, “All I could think was the girls never met my mother. Because then they’d know what a real alcoholic looks like.” We hear about a few of Hildy’s mother’s habits—illustrating not only how her alcoholism impacted her and her family (including Hildy), but how she was also dealing with depression.
Hildy and Frank share a bottle of wine over dinner. And when Hildy goes to get another, Frank asks if he can smoke marijuana, too. (Emily, who’s in town for a visit, notes both the smell and the emptied bottles. Hildy, naturally, lies about the bottles—telling Emily that while Frank drinks, she doesn’t touch the stuff anymore.)
Someone smokes a cigarette.
A boy on the autism spectrum throws tantrums and takes a toy away from a little girl.
Alcohol, in various forms, is often used as fuel. It powers everything from oil lamps to engines. And it powers plenty of stories, too.
Sometimes it’s treated as the gas that powers the gag—the substance that keeps the funny drunkard saying funny things. Sometimes it’s treated as party fuel—an essential ingredient for a good time. And, more rarely, it’s treated as the explosive substance it is—reminding us that its misuse can blow up lives.
The Good House reminds us of all three.
People drink to forget the past, to ease fears about the future, to fit in. Hildy drinks for all of these reasons, but one more reason above all: because it’s part of who she is.
When Hildy drinks, she’s charming and warm. When she drinks, she feels like herself. In flashback, she tells her then-husband that she only starts to feel in control by her third drink. She tells a friend, as they sip wine on the floor, that she missed herself—and now she feels like, because she’s drinking again, she’s back. Her identity is intrinsically wrapped up in holding that stemmed glass, sipping that cocktail.
“It’s hard giving up the old version of yourself,” a fellow alcoholic tells her. And it’s true. For some, alcohol feels like the mortar that holds the bricks together, the grease that keeps the engine running. But for Hildy and other alcoholics, the booze is corrosive, too—eating away at the bricks, chewing down the engine. And eventually, it all falls apart.
I’m grateful that The Good House conveys these difficult truths with such deft and, often, humor. If alcohol wasn’t attractive, if it wasn’t fun, it wouldn’t pose much of a problem, would it?
Unfortunately, the film brings a few other problems into this cautionary tale. The film is rated R, albeit a pretty soft R. (Indeed, The Good House was originally listed as PG-13 on Google before someone apparently thought better of it.) And while the alcohol is an important and inescapable part of the story, the sexual content and language easily could’ve been dropped.
The Good House is, in some respects, a good movie. Anchored by Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline, it’s funny and moving with a strong message at its core. But it could’ve been better.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
