The Hotel New Hampshire

The.Hotel.New.Hampshire.1984.BRRip.XviD.MP3-XVID

source: The Hotel New Hampshire

Unlike "The World According to Garp," which was translated to the big screen brilliantly, "The Hotel New Hampshire" (which is probably my favorite John Irving novel) is a disaster. The filmmakers are much too faithful to the novel, which causes them to rush through the story in an attempt to get everything in. Consequently, not enough time is given the parts of the story which are essential, and everything of value is lost. A number of good actors are badly served by this film, which could have been so much better than it turned out to be.

After seeing and loving "The World According To Garp" - maybe the only film I've seen in the last twenty-five years that I thought was better than the book after having read the book first - I was looking forward to seeing "The Hotel New Hampshire", another John Irving book I had enjoyed. What a disappointment. This film was so bad I left the theater hating the book as well as the movie - a unique experience for me! Once your main casting choices involve Nastassja Kinski as a young lady so ugly that she walks around with a bear's head on so people won't see her, and Rob Lowe as anything, you're on pretty thin ice. It didn't take long for Tony Richardson and everyone else to then break through that ice. Sorrow might float (to paraphrase the movie), but this film sank like a stone.

As far as book/movie adaptations go, this one is by far better than Cider House and Garp. It follows the book wonderfully, with exception to minor details. I'm not saying it's a better MOVIE than Garp or cider house, but it is much truer to the book, and that's always been important to me. I'm one of those people who says "WHAT? THAT'S NOT HOW IT HAPPENED IN THE BOOK!" I once read a post where a girl said everyone involved in this movie should be ashamed of it. She obviously missed the point. The ending, which is so powerful in the book, is equally powerful in the movie. The one improvement, I thought, was the Susie the Bear character. I didn't care for her much after I read the book, but when I saw the movie I was like "yeah!". Incest, plane crashes, blind men named Frued, a bomb at the opera - and a woman in a bear costume. What more could you ask for?

I can actually promise you that there has never been a worse film ever made in the history of film! Rob Lowe trying to act, incest, gang rape, a farting dog, death, all in one film! I swear to you this movie sucks. Please don't watch it. It is horrible.

Author John Irving's "The World According to Garp" made a decent movie not just because the director and the stars were a perfect fit--it was an interesting study of eccentric lives and behavior, and the paths the characters took were worth following. Irving's "The Hotel New Hampshire" is a far less engaging story concerning the large family behind an American hotel who have further adventures in Vienna. Adapted and directed (sloppily) by Tony Richardson, the material--which is overly-concerned with sexual upsets and assorted humiliations--is ill-suited for the screen, and the misbegotten results almost derailed Jodie Foster's career as she attempted to move from teenage to adult roles. Foster and Rob Lowe are siblings who share a sexual attraction; their younger sister fears dwarfism; they meet a sexpot who hides from the world in a bear suit, etc. Young Lowe comes off as the star here; he's very easy and pretty pining for sis, but Beau Bridges, Nastassja Kinski, Matthew Modine, Paul McCrane, and wizened little Jennie Dundas are pretty much at a loss. The director's rhythm is woefully off (detectable right from the beginning) and the editing is a mess. The film is just a jumble of moments, tedious craziness and racy interludes. Worse, it is uncomfortably foul-mouthed, jaded, pretentious and wincingly unfunny. * from ****

Rob Lowe trying to be deep, incest, rape and more depraved madness and terrible writing. The acting would be laughable if the movie wasn't nearly vomit inducing. I would watch any other movie besides this one. Compared to this flix Duckman, North, Blankman and Moll Flanders are all a 10. 1 out of 10

This is a perfect example of why good, literary novels shouldn't be made into films. I read this book (along with his other best-sellers "World According to Garp" and "Cider House Rules") back in the 80's when they were published, and I thought they were great, serious works of fiction full of colorful, off-the wall characters fleshed out in engaging prose. Unfortunately, all of this is lost in this film adaptation. I don't know who Tony Richardson is, and if he directed any other movies, but if they are as poorly-lit, badly-recorded, ineptly edited, and haphazardly narrated as this one is, I'll pass. Although the movie sticks pretty closely to the original, it just doesn't work on the screen. The first third of the book, dealing with the first Hotel New Hampshire, is truncated into a five minute, voiced-over series of vignettes under the opening credits. This is all of the movie you need to see, because the director uses his entire bag of tricks here. We seem to enter in the middle of a story, one everyone (except you) seems to already be familiar with. Random characters and situations are thrown at you, with no apparent continuity, sense, or narrative flow. When the story gets dark or uncomfortable, the director resorts to cheap gimmicks like fast-action photography. It may have been funny when the Keystone Kops did it, but it is most definitely UNfunny here. Wallace Shawn, sporting a bad wig, motorcycle jacket and towing a performing bear, shows up and just as suddenly, disappears. (We do encounter him later in the film, but now he's bald and blind, and although he's back in his native Vienna, his German accent seems to come and go mysteriously. It's also 10 or 15 years later, apparently but somehow he's the only one who is any older.) Rob Lowe looks pretty and vapid. Jodie Foster looks sexy, talks dirty, and acts tough. Beau Bridges just looks befuddled most of the time. And the actress (whoever she is ) who plays the mother has such a tiny part that she barely registers. Incest, rape, murder, accidental death, suicide, radical German nihilists with bombs, *, and a lesbian in a bear suit are all in this movie, and it's all BORING. All I can recommend is that you read the book. Everything that is confusing, depressing, and just plain weird in this movie makes great, if quirky, sense in the book.

"Hotel New Hampshire" is so weird. It involves a a very dysfunctional motley crue of a family. The reason why they are so weird is , because they are derived from the equally demented John Irving novel. They are so bizarre and complex that it takes 5 hours to describe them. Beau Bridges plays the father and looks more like an older brother to the rest. Rob Lowe plays the pretty boy brother who lusts for his sister's body, Frannie. There is a little boy named Egg, because he started as an egg and still is an egg. There's a little girl midget who later becomes a best selling novelist. There's a scene which a girl pulls out her false teeth to kiss her date. Had enough? We have years left of this depraved saga. Mother and Egg get killed in a plane crash for no apparent reason and the rest of the family is stranded in Europe. The mangy stuffed dog floats out to sea with the dead crew of the aircraft. Frannie gets gang raped by the high school football team. She becomes a movie star and marries a black athlete. The midget commits suicide by leaping off a high rise building window. None of this makes one bit of sense. Irving throws these characters in our laps and expects us to think they are cute. The result is that everyone and everything looks retarded in "The Hotel New Hampshire". Worst of all is that everyone is hopelessly miscast. Beau Bridges looks like an older brother, not a mature father figure who can run a hotel. Jodie Foster is too pasty, pudgy and asexual to attract gnats. Nasstassja Kinski proves that she cannot act, but only a raving idiot would cast her as a girl who wears a bear suit because she thinks she's ugly. Rob Lowe is prettier than any of the women in this film. This movie doesn't really qualify as a film in by book, but rather as a mere mistake.