Welsh films rarely sit comfortably in any genre box. Since the slow re-emergence of Wales as a feature film setting in the 1990s, romantic-comedy seems an almost default choice, but it’s rarely as neatly packaged as that. You can count on a set of familiar tropes too: fictional southern towns, quirky or hapless locals, non-Welsh lead actors, and of course absolutely no friggin’ laughs. For HOUSE! See the other Welsh RomComDrams you never did, like THE BAKER, PLOTS WITH A VIEW, VERY ANNIE MARY and even the American film THE ENGLISHMAN WHO WENT UP A HILL BUT CAME DOWN A MOUNTAIN.

The ‘blame’ for setting a trend is probably the genius of Kevin Allen’s TWIN TOWN, which was confident enough to straddle that delicate genre line and to set its story in a real place using local actors. It also has a firm commitment to comedy, with the drama occuring naturally from characters and its essential bleakness. A black comedy, then.

HOUSE! rides the short wave of late 90s often lottery-funded British films backed in the wake of FOUR WEDDINGS & A FUNERAL, TRAINSPOTTING and THE FULL MONTY, and is best boxed as romantic-comedy-drama. I think. Kelly Macdonald (TRAINSPOTTING, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN) plays Linda, an orphaned (drama) young single (romance) bingo hall employee in a fictional, quirky southern town (comedy) who’s trying to save the hall from a large franchise buyer and her mum’s house from sinister Auntie played by Miriam Margoyles. So think DODGEBALL, without the comedy. Oh yes, she also falls in love with cheesy Bingo caller Gavin (Jason Hughes) and it turns out also has psychic abilities (fantasy).

So we have a kind of kitchen sink-comedy-drama-romance-fantasy. Filmed on location in the Vale of Glamorgan. What could possibly go wrong? It doesn’t nail any of them. I mean, it’s not particularly romantic, funny or dramatic and the late introduction of the main character’s clairvoyance is like something out of Russell T. Davies era DOCTOR Who. So that’s a problem, then.

It’s at this point when I apologise for this review’s total lack of Bingo puns. But you could have a game of Wales in the Movies Welsh Film Bingo below. Here’s HOUSE!’s card.

Kelly Macdonald was a bit of a rising star in 1999 and, okay she’s watchable enough in what is not an awful film, per se. The frustration comes when pondering the missed opportunity and basic production errors that occur more often than not in Welsh films. If you want to make comedy, make a comedy and focus on that. If you want a drama, go dramatic. Whichever way you go, decide on a tone, for heaven’s sake. What do you want your audience to feel? What is the story about? These are basic writing questions that need nailing down from the very beginning. It’s fine if you’re Quentin Tarantino or hell, even Richard Curtis. But when you’re a fledgling director trying to get an independent film off the ground you don’t have the luxury of indulgence like this.

It’s such a shame because you know what? This is a terrific looking movie. It looks like a film (not director Julian Kemp’s normal TV profile) and is at times boldly-directed. Plenty of camera movement, zooms and speedups bring to mind the visual flair of Edgar Wright in the modern era. But good luck getting an established film director like that to shoot a script like this in any decade. Rivalry with Welsh bingo halls sounds like a recipe for decent comedy, if it’s about the characters who take part in such tacky activity. Will Linda save La Scala? Will she find love with Gav? Will you care?

Wales

A few familiar Welsh actors show up. William Thomas has a cameo, as does Lynne Hunter and actress/screenwriter Helen Griffin who sadly passed away last year in 2018.

Much of the movie is filmed 5 minutes walk from where I currently type at Penarth Pier and beach, in and around a building which was abandoned for decades but which now houses a lovely little cinema at Penarth Pier Pavillion. Other scenes are shot around Barry, also in the Vale of Glamorgan and there’s some stuff toward the end shot in Castle Street in Cardiff Centre near The Angel Hotel.

“Life’s not about winning or losing, it’s about crossing the line” reads the tagline on the poster below. Really? HOUSE! joins a list of Welsh films that don’t know what they are trying to say and don’t know how to say it. I’d love to bet able to write about how charming it is, or any other adjective to defend a comedy film without any laughs in it. But the truth is that despite some visual flair it’s another missed opportunity to represent this part of the world on film. Drist.

Nick