"In the House" (2013)

Though it's infrequently discussed, there's an certain ethical nature to writing. What you can and cannot write about, and, more importantly, how you should or should not write about something. Strictly speaking, nothing is off limits for telling a story, but some stories or how those stories are crafted can be questionable or objectionable. In the House is interested in testing where that line of objectionableness lies. As an English teacher comes across a student with a budding gift for writing, he encourages the student to keep writing while the real life events the students draws his material from make everything more than a little inappropriate. But the teacher sees such promise in the student that he overlooks any potentially sticky ethical concerns. The student has befriended a classmate in order to go over to his nice house repeatedly, and then once in there he snoops on the family secrets and ingratiates himself to the mother who he's attracted to. Meanwhile, the teacher reads the various installments of the story to his wife, uncertain of the means by which they're obtained -- or if some of this is being fabricated -- and gives lessons to the student in how to better write his stories. When the teacher treats the writing as simply just "fiction" in his writing sessions, his methods continually feel purposely designed to side-step the realities of meddling in other people's lives. While the student seems to have fictionalized some elements, the core of the story is based in reality. The teacher tells the student to deepen the characterizations of his characters but that sounds grossly ironic and condescending. The more he pushes the student, the more his personal life is drawn into the story until he realizes that it isn't merely just a story but people's real lives he's messing around with. Early on, In the House treats much of this for thrilling and humorous effect, but as the film progresses it acknowledges the misconduct at hand and doesn't let its characters off the hook for their ethical breaches.  

★★★