Mark Reviews Movies: THE HOUSE OF TOMORROW

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Capsule review by Mark Dujsik | April 26, 2018

In The House of Tomorrow, a sheltered teenager learns how to lie, steal, and play a three-note progression on an electric bass. The kid is supposedly better and freer for his rebellious choices, but there really isn't much to the character—or, for that matter, any of the characters here—for us to believe that.

The movie, written and directed by Peter Livolsi, is one of those independent dramedies in which every character possesses a defining quirk or two and not much else beneath that superficial level. Our protagonist Sebastian (Asa Butterfield) is an orphan who has been raised by his grandmother Josephine (Ellen Burstyn) in a futuristic house based on Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome design.

Sebastian has never known a life outside of the house, meaning that his primary quirk is social awkwardness. Meanwhile, Josephine is a devoted disciple of Fuller who denies Sebastian most of the influence of the outside world. During a church youth group's field trip to the house, she suffers a stroke (from which she recovers with miraculous speed, because the filmmakers apparently don't want Sebastian's evolution to indirectly kill his grandmother through negligence). Sebastian ends up befriending Jared (Alex Wolff), the son of the youth group's leader Alan (Nick Offerman).

Jared's quirks consist of a love of punk rock and a heart transplant that he underwent a few months prior. At first, the ailing teen is annoyed by Sebastian's square-ness, but the two decide to start a band and play in the youth group's upcoming talent show. To practice, Sebastian steals a bass from the church and repeatedly lies to Josephine about his daily outings into town.

Everything that happens is sorely predictable, from Sebastian's "growth" to Jared's repeated health scares—from Josephine's rejection of her grandson's new lifestyle to Alan gradually learning that his son has to live whatever life he has left in him. The conflicts are frequent but also frequently forgotten, lest things stray too far from the story's inevitable path.

The performances keep The House of Tomorrow from becoming too transparently contrived, with Wolff, as the refusing-to-be-a-tragedy-in-the-making rebel, and Offerman, as a man who only can handle one crisis at a time, standing out from the pack. Even so, the movie is transparent in the way it mistakes its various quirks for legitimate personality or depth.

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