The is not a review or a plot description, this is a record of how the movie made me feel. Warning, there is some nudity and even more implied
I have never seen this moving before and I am not at all certain I will see it again. Early in the movie Esteban, (Jeremy Irons), runs a local girl, (Pancha García (Sarita Choudhury), down while on horseback. She was carrying her laundry along a trail. Esteban rapes her, I think the movie intends for me not to like Esteban and it succeeded. Pancha,the girl he raped is impregnated and comes to him to ask for money for food, he finally gives it to her, but is really rude in front of his bastard son. He does other things to, he is a man of dark passion, a total creep. I find myself hoping the plot causes him to die a horrible death or a very long life where he ends up lonely and alone.
He marries Clara, (Meryl Streep), and I think he wants to love her, but he does not controls his passions, including not being faithful to the marriage which falls apart after he strikes Clara and causes her to bleed.
Another emotional roller coaster involves his daughter. Blanca, (Hannah Taylor-Gordon), falls into a life long love, (I hope), with Pedro, (Antonio Banderas), from a very early age. She is heir to the most prosperous hacienda in Argentina and he is a peasant. Later in the movie they have sex in the same place they went skinny dipping when they were five years old. Blanca gets pregnant so the sting of illegitimate children continues. I am hoping for the best for the three of them. That hope is crushed. Then things take a bad turn. The country goes haywire with a coup and it breaks very bad for Blanca. I really feel for her.
Meanwhile Esteban has been broken by the course of events and actually does a good deed helping Pedro get to safety. Now, I find myself hoping for a life redeemed.
I don't want to mention any more details as we are near the end and it would be a spoiler. The movie left me flat. Am I glad the DVD is in my library? Unknown! This disk was a set of three Meryl Streep movies. I haven't seen the other two, but I doubt I will watch Spirit House again.
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