Back in the late 1980s, when critics were fawning over Peter Weir’s overbaked, cloying and obnoxious Dead Poets Society (1989), few acknowledged that a little movie of two years prior (with a tiny fraction of its gross – it earned just over one million stateside, compared to Poets’ reported domestic gross of over 95 million) blithely achieved what Weir was attempting on a thematic level. And it did so with twice the grace and no manipulation at hand. Scottish darling Bill Forsyth’s Housekeeping (1987) was a product of onetime Columbia prexy David Puttnam’s brief, controversial tenure at that studio; Puttnam and Forsyth had worked together several years prior by collaborating on the masterful Local Hero (1983) at Goldcrest Films in the UK, so when the Coca Cola company purchased Columbia and brought Puttnam in to head-up their flagging studio operation (c. 1986), Puttnam turned to Europe for talent. Forsyth soon heeded Puttnam’s call and found himself whisked off to the lights of Los Angeles. The movie that the two men produced, Housekeeping (originally a property held by Cannon and slated to star Diane Keaton), is arguably the finest product of the Puttnam era at Columbia Pictures. Still, over twenty years later, few American viewers have heard of it; it has never received a DVD release, seldom turns up on cable, and is just awaiting rediscovery by cinephiles.

Adapted by Forsyth from the 1982 novel by Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping is an off-center tragicomedy about the social and emotional risks associated with nonconformity – not the passing nonconformity of youth, but that which lies so ingrained in some individuals that it can never quite be shaken, and which ventures to such extremes that others (reeling from their own pathologies and insecurities) will feel inclined to mislabel it as mental imbalance. Christine Lahti stars as Sylvie, a thirtysomething who inherits the custody of two young nieces, Ruth (Sarah Walker) and Lucille (Andrea Burchill) after their emotionally disturbed mother commits suicide by driving into a lake. Though Sylvie generates warmth and shows genuine love and concern for her charges, she doesn’t exactly fit the mold of an “ideal guardian,” by anyone’s standards; she amasses large quantities of newspapers in the house, thinks little of pilfering a stranger’s rowboat to go for a moonlit jaunt on the nearby lake, piles tin cans in pyramids throughout the house, and harbors some inherent objection to bright light.

Forsyth’s brilliance lies in never attempting to account for Sylvie’s seemingly capricious behavior; he realizes that such explanations would topple the delicate construction of the film, and indeed (on a more practical level) that it would be nearly impossible to account for the extreme idiosyncrasies of this woman. Like Robinson, Forsyth wisely posits the film in that most unhealthy of decades, the 1950s – where the weight of conformity reigns supreme and threatens to crush free-spiritedness into pieces. To the film’s credit, the mood for much of its duration waxes whimsical, quirky, and even on occasion hilarious (as in the scene with the rowboat) – and that mood is what saves it by keeping it fresh and buoyant, that rescues it from the doldrums. Over the course of the narrative, however, we recognize the film’s apparent frivolity as deeply deceptive, and a buried level of meaning and insight emerges via the growth and maturation of the two girls. As they reach adolescence, we witness their paths diverging. One evolves into a social butterfly and a conformist, the other into an awkward eccentric, like her aunt. This indefinite separation of the sisters – and the bittersweet conclusion of the film (which will not be revealed here) enables Forsyth to gamely pull off what Weir attempted to explore in Poets with the inclusion of that film’s suicide. Weir depicted a character whose insistence on acknowledging and clinging to extreme individuality led him to self-destruction when he felt unable to contend with the pressures of conformity; Forsyth implies that such an insistence on individuality can potentially lead to something worse - a lifetime of social ostracism and isolation. Yet at the same time, the film (via the tight bond forged between Sylvie and Lucille) reminds us that the opposite also holds equal weight – that acknowledging one’s own individuality means opening oneself up to the joy of experiencing what novelist Josephine Hart described as “the shock of recognition… as the twisted iron in our souls unlocks itself and we slip at last into place,” (the shock received from an encounter with a soul-mate) even if it arrives at the cost of mainstream social acceptance. Such is the bond that Sylvie and Lucille experience. That the film brings us to such a profound, deep and multi-faceted conclusion about the mixed prospects of extreme individuality is a remarkable accomplishment indeed - all the more so for achieving such profundity at the conclusion of a narrative radiant with unadulterated joy, warmth, and humor.

On an aesthetic level, the movie not only qualifies as one of the most deeply lyrical films of its era, but establishes a wondrous link between the “look” of its on-screen environment and its character arcs. Just as Forsyth uses screen time to reflect on (and observe) the passage of time wreaking irreversible change on the two young girls (a fork in the road that may permanently separate them for the rest of their lives) cinematographer Michael Coulter and production designer Adrienne Atkinson use the scenic environments of the Pacific Northwest to create a palette rich with the deep oranges and reds of autumn – indicative of a state of seasonal change to mirror the internal emotional shifts of the young women. Certainly, this is one of the most beautiful films of its era (Coulter shot it in the same region as the same year’s Roxanne) and it remains difficult to think of another Hollywood film with such a perfectly forged connection between its visual plane and its thematic tropes.

Many “mainstream” Hollywood films from the mid-late 1980s haven’t worn their age well. Conversely, Housekeeping has only improved with time. As one of the most unique industry films of any era, this is one to seek out and hold in the highest regard.