Where the heart is - 1990

I liked it so much when I was a young girl. Watching it again now I can recall those feelings, but I also see all the absurdity with adult eyes. How it was magical back then! when I didn’t ask myself how could they manage all that without money, when I didn’t think it was odd that they only met good people, when every stroke of luck was simply nice and not absurd... back then I concentrated on the beautiful paintings, on the lovely and warm atmosphere, on how nice it was that they all loved each other...
The story: Stewart McBain (Dabney Coleman) is a rich man with a beautiful wife and three children who have no intention of leaving their comfortable home. He makes a living blowing up old buildings in order to build new ones. The movie starts with him at work, being stopped by some protesters who win a petition to save a place called The Dutch House. If the house stands, Stewart can’t move on with the project and is in a crisis. Tired and worried, he doesn’t approve of his youngest daughter Daphne (Uma Thurman) keeping the music loud all day, of his son Jimmy (David Hewlett) spending his time playing with his toys (actually computers, but Stewart doesn’t approve of those either), or of his other daughter Chloe’s (Suzy Amis) art which consists in painting her own body and her sister’s in bodypaint, so one night instead of driving home he leaves them at the Dutch House telling them that they’ll have to manage on their own. Still he gives them 750$ each to start. Daphne is angry, yells at her parents “you can’t just spoil us and stop spoiling us when it suits you!”. She even goes back to her parents’ house to make a big scene, jumping on the car and yelling... but Stewart forbids his wife Jean (Joanna Cassidy) from helping them, because they must make it on their own.
They try to rent the rooms but of course nobody wants to pay to stay in that place. Chloe accepts an offer from an insurance company to make a calendar (reluctantly though because she didn’t want to sell her art, which is sooo arrogant and stupid), so she uses the money to buy some paint. They all find a friend who they can convince to take a room in the Dutch house, but Chloe’s friend Lionel (Crispin Glover) won’t have the money until he completes his fashion collection, and Daphne brings home a homeless guy (Christopher Plummer) in exchange for magic lessons. Jimmy’s friend Tom (Dylan Walsh) is the only one who can pay his rent. 
Luckily Sheryl comes along (Sheila Kelley), a girl who can pay and is willing to do so because she believes in the spirit world and thinks there’s good energy in that house...
Stewart tries to keep his company afloat putting all he has into it, but when the market goes down he loses everything. Jean goes to her children crying in shock, they lost all the money and both their houses. They start looking for Stewart and finally it’s Sheila who finds him in the company of a homeless man and brings him home. Chloe continues her paintings, and Jimmy shows his dad the videogame on demolition that he created , but not all is yet well. They are evicted from the Dutch House and can’t find a job (well, they go in once asking for one, they’re told no and they go away... ) , but when they seem to be at their lowest, without money and without a home - and yet still with a Porsche to drive around - a big storm gives Jimmy an idea: the house is not safe, what if the storm where to bring it down?? So they help things along, Stewart blows it down so well it appears as if the storm did it, so now they’re ok again; without that house his problems are finished, and they all get back what they lost, even Jean’s house in the country. At the end the family is all together, Chloe finishes her calendar, Lionel has a big success with his fashion show and tells Chloe that he’s crazy about her, that he only pretended to be gay to be taken seriously in the fashion world, Tom is finally in love with the right sister: Daphne, and now all’s well that ends well...
Watching it now I can’t help thinking how old all that computer-talking sounds. The paint that Chloe bought would never last for all that: we know for sure that she painted seven walls - I don’t know if the one with the purple window was ever made into a month-picture or not, but still it has been painted, plus all the body paint and all the accessories needed, some wings and a bow and arrow may be little things but they don’t come out of thin air, they must have been bought somewhere...
They don’t start penniless: they have 2250$ and a roof over their heads, which honestly is more than many people have nowadays, but they were simply too spoiled to seriously consider finding a job - I mean, Jimmy finds one once, but as soon as someone steals his bike he quits....
When they all go looking for jobs later in the movie, Stewart wants to blow up buildings, Daphne wants to be a magician’s assistant... I mean, do they want a job or not??? Come on!
A silly scene that I didn’t like even then: the first morning in the house they see their father outside and decide to act all happy, and the two sisters start dancing around while Jimmy acts like a monkey.... this scene was always too silly, no matter how young I was I never thought that the answer to ‘what would you do to make someone think that you’re enjoying yourself’ was to act like a monkey..
Having said all that: I still think that the calendar was beautiful, the body-paintings were wonderful, and I like the idea of this house where the walls were works of art, and the country house was beautiful, and I love the scenes when the characters speak or walk still wearing their body paint on; I like the young Uma Thurman more than I liked her spoiled character, but Daphne redeemed herself at the end; I liked a lot Crispin Glover, and I think that Glover and Daleman are the only ones in this movie who actually show a range of emotions on their faces. Glover here reminds me, in their own very different ways, of Tony Perkins.