Where the Heart Is (1990) (Film Review)

Directed by: John Boorman; Written by: John Boorman and Telsche Boorman
Starring: Dabney Coleman, Uma Thurman, Joanna Cassidy, Crispin Glover, Suzy Amis, and Christopher Plummer
MPAA Rating: R; Running Time: 107 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 4/10

John Boorman has directed Hell in the Pacific, a nihilistic battle of wills between an American G.I. and a Japanese soldier,which ends in literal fire and brimstone. He directed Deliverance, a film about a canoeing trip that goes awry, involving rape and murder. He put his own sex and violence-filled spin on the King Arthur legend with 1981's Excalibur. Those three movies are awesome.
In 1990, John Boorman directed a whimsical tale of artsy hipster 20-somethings getting kicked out of their parents' house by their wealthy, demolition company-head father. Boorman co-wrote that film, Where the Heart Is, with his daughter. Unfortunately, Where the Heart Is is not awesome. It is not very awesome at all.
Where the Heart Is features the usually reliable Dabney Coleman as the dad, a young Uma Thurman as one of his children, and Crispin Glover as one of the kids' artist friends who decides to live with them in the old, run-down, historically significant house Coleman gives his kids the keys to. You see, Coleman's company own that lot, and he was going to bulldoze the old shack, but protesters, who remind him of his worthless Gen-X children, have ensured it will remain standing. The kids and friends they sucker in as roommates to help with the bills try to make the best of the situation, trying to accomplish their nebulous artistic dreams in spite of their situation. One of those friends is an ex-magician, now vagrant, nicknamed "Shitty," and holy shit, Shitty is played by Christopher Plummer. If you don't believe Boorman had an excess of goodwill in his favor before Where the Heart Is, just look at its cast list.
The cast is nearly completely squandered because, what do you know, a guy who makes great films involving murderous raping hillbillies and a badass King Arthur, who literally impales himself to kill his foe, isn't that great at making comedies. There's nothing in Where the Heart Is that remotely resembles reality, thus the normal human connection necessary for a human being to find something humorous is completely absent. No humans here act like humans or live anything remotely resembling a human life. However, in the same way Where the Heart Is is free of humanity, it is also completely harmless, like an eager, toothless puppy. It's also got two minor pros.
The first is the film's artwork. Boorman, ever the great visualist, has one of the children, played by Suzy Amis, create wall paintings involving human participants. The paintings are absolutely stunning and show up enough to just barely keep the viewer from falling asleep. The second is Christopher Plummer's completely over-the-top, bizarrely nutty performance. Though they may not be for everyone, Plummer's mumbly, stumbly aphorisms continuously cracked me up. Of course, these two positives don't make Where the Heart Is worth watching, but if for some reason you're stuck with this one, or you accidentally click on it instead of the 2000 Natalie Portman/Ashley Judd film of the same name, they're two things to hang onto....then again, you could literally watch nearly anything else...including virtually everything else John Boorman directed before Where the Heart Is...even Zardoz.