Stars: Joe Mantegna, Lindsay Crouse, Mike Nussbaum, Lilia Skala

Director: David Mamet

Summary: The story of a female psychiatrist and best-selling author whose dull life takes on a new meaning when she gets deeply involved with a charismatic conman. Their relationship becomes more and more intense as she finds herself totally embroiled in a dark world of treachery.

David Mamet's directorial debut finds him exploring his abiding interest in deception and inviting his audience to be prepared for endless twists and turns. The film is a character study of Dr. Margaret Ford (Lindsay Crouse), a psychiatrist and best-selling author specializing in addictive behaviour. During a therapy session, she discovers that a patient owes a $25,000 gambling debt. When she becomes involved on her patient's behalf, she enters an underworld populated with fascinating characters. Dr. Ford is both strong and vulnerable, and Crouse exploits this ambiguity in a powerful central performance. Joe Mantegna is also a presence as underworld denizen Mike. The strong overall acting and well-crafted plot pleased critics and proved to be at the heart of Mamet's future filmmaking successes.

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David Mamet's 1987 directorial debut House of Gamesis mesmerising study of control and seduction between two kinds of detached observers: a gambler who is also a con artist and a psychotherapist who is also an emerging pop-psych guru in the book market. The latter (played by Lindsay Crouse) meets the former (Joe Mantegna) when one of her clients is driven to despair from his debts to the card shark. Mantegna's character agrees to drop the IOUs in exchange for Crouse's attention at the seedy House of Games in Seattle, a mecca for conmen to talk shop and hustle unsuspecting customers.

The shrink gets so caught up in the arcane rules and world view of her guide over subsequent days that she observes--with no false rapture--various stings in progress inside and outside the club. Mamet's story finally becomes a fascinating study of two people protecting and extending their respective cosmologies the way rival predators fight for the same piece of turf. The psychological challenge is compelling; so is the stylised dialogue, with its pattern of pauses and hiccups and humming meter. Mostly shooting at night, Mamet also gave Seattle a different look from previous filmmakers, turning its familiar puddles into concentrations of liquid neon and poisonous noir. --Tom Keogh

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Trailer
Year:	1987
Release Date:	February 2, 2004
Runtime:	98 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	10001014
Keywords:	Games, House, General, Drama
Genre:	Drama