The Hotel New Hampshire
"Devilishly funny." -The Hollywood Reporter
From Academy Award®-winning director Tony Richardson (Tom Jones) comes this "bright, amusing and provocative" (The Hollywood Reporter) film based on John Irving's best-selling novel. Featuring "a gifted cast" (Los Angeles Herald-Examiner) including Oscar® winner Jodie Foster (The Silence Of The Lambs), Rob Lowe ("The West Wing") and Beau Bridges (The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Hotel New Hampshire is "intriguing" (Boxoffice), "impressive" (Los Angeles Herald-Examiner) and "fascinating" (Variety)!
A motley clan of eight lovable misfits, the Berry family sets out on an adventure to fulfill their father's lifelong aspiration of owning a hotel. Their quest takes them around the world, and they greet every new location with their own brand of outrageous humor, practical jokes and just plain weird eccentricism. But when this tribe of oddballs encounters a healthy dose of heartbreak, they soon must learn that not all in life is fun and games...and that sometimes the only thing you have left is the one thing that matters most...family.
Member Reviews
Nice Try - crazyboutmovies
To reduce a John Irving into a logical story that can be made into a two-hour movie is an impossible task. This is especially true of this particular novel by Irving, which deals with so many complex and controversial subjects - rape, incest, interracial sex and marriage (one must remember that the novel was written in 1981, and the movie made in 1983, long before we could imagine an African-American in the White House.)
What happens therefore is that we see highlights of things that happened in the novel, without really knowing why they happen - John's obsession with Franny, Franny's relationship with Suzie, John's relationship with Suzie, Lily's evolution into a writer, and her ultimate suicide, or the crazy happenings at Freud's "Hotel" in Vienna.
The director of the movie tries to give the story a happy ending. In the novel, as with many of the writer's stories, one is left with a feeling of sadness, or emptiness, much like the beautiful but empty Hotel New Hampshire that the Berry's were living in.
It was a nice try though.No Stars - Willibrord
I usually give a movie a good chance, but in the case of Hotel New Hampshire -- that's nine minutes and forty-two seconds of my life that I'll never get back! Everyone involved with this film should be ashamed. And I didn't even make it to the controversial parts I've heard so much about ...Unrelenting, spastic sequence of absurd, tasteless,unsavory moments - Porkchop
THE HOTEL NEW HAMPSHIRE (1984) in theory should have been a
fascinating, exciting movie with a lot of crowd-drawing power, from
its all-star cast, made up of Jodie Foster, Nastassja Kinski, Rob
Lowe and more, all in their prime ... aged 20 to 30 years, at the
time.
Unfortunately, this picture was written in 1 of 3 possible ways:
someone who's adapted the painting technique of throwing buckets of
paint at a canvas, calling himself a painter, and the result, a
painting to the movies; or someone with the mental age of 10; or
someone who has not only totally lost their mind, and has lost touch
with reality, in the present, and in their past.
Of course, it's a treat to see Foster, Kinski, Lowe in action, as
they are truly talented, in bringing forth subtle human
undercurrents, and visual expressions to the camera and audience.
But, this work apparently attempts to carry to the silver screen, a
novel in the style of Kurt Vonnegut, for example, or Douglas Adams,
who wrote Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, among others. I haven't
read, (and now, would probably decline to ever read) the original
manuscript or novel, but, most would probably give the benefit of
the doubt to the underlying book author.
In terms of movie, though, there's indubitably no redeeming value to
it, as it's a unrelenting, spastic sequence of absurd, tasteless,
unnecessary, unsavory moments, involving taboo after taboo,
intermixed with a sugar coating, to perhaps confusem, fool and
mesmerize the censors or movie rating authorities.
The sugar coating of the taboos, might perhaps make palatable the
underlying sequences to those with a low IQ, or perhaps to children,
but for all others, including teenagers, or seniors or those with a
wicked sense of humor, there's really no coherent story progressing
over the 90 mins.
As such, and the best remedy is really the fast forward button on
the DVD
Member Reviews
Read All...
Nice Try - crazyboutmovies
To reduce a John Irving into a logical story that can be made into a two-hour movie is an impossible task. This is especially true of this particular novel by Irving, which deals with so many complex and controversial subjects - rape, incest, interracial sex ...No Stars - Willibrord
I usually give a movie a good chance, but in the case of Hotel New Hampshire -- that's nine minutes and forty-two seconds of my life that I'll never get back! Everyone involved with this film should be ashamed. And I didn't even make it to the controversial ...Unrelenting, spastic sequence of absurd, tasteless,unsavory moments - Porkchop
THE HOTEL NEW HAMPSHIRE (1984) in theory should have been a
fascinating, exciting movie with a lot of crowd-drawing power, from
its all-star cast, made up of Jodie Foster, Nastassja Kinski, Rob
Lowe and more, all in their prime ... aged 20 to 30 years, ...