Housewarming

I can only imagine how satisfying it must feel to buy a home for the first time. For so many people my age who live in big, expensive cities, it feels like a goal that’ll always be out of reach, you know? Inflation has turned dollars into dimes, debt is skyrocketing. and the average rent in cities like London, Toronto, New York, and Los Angeles is uncomfortably high. As a result, many young people are forced to live in less-than-ideal situations, struggling to cover rent, let alone save up for a downpayment on a place of their own. Ultimately, for many in our generation, the idea of owning a home feels more like a dream than an achievable goal. But what happens when you finally manage to buy a home of your own and that dream turns into a nightmare?

**SPOILER ALERTS**

Liam White’s creepily excellent Housewarming deals with the downsides of homeownership, and the unwelcome guests who might come knocking at your door. Saskia (Charley Clive) has just moved into her first home, only to have her newfound sense of peace and quiet rudely interrupted by the arrival of of Craig (Barry Ward), a sketchy stranger who used to live in the house she just bought. His sales pitch starts innocently enough – he’s just arrived back in town to find his ex’s place inhabited by somebody else. He doesn’t know where to go, and his phone is dead – so can he just come in for a second?

Barry Ward stars as a stranger who turns up at Saskia’s front door, just after she’s moved into her new house.

Like the empathetic human being that she is, Saskia agrees to charge his phone for him – as long as he stays outside. As you can imagine, he doesn’t respect her wishes, and the situation quickly devolves into one in which a pushy, entitled man continues to do things that he has been politely – and then directly – told not to do. As he invades her space and makes it feel unsafe, all she has to protect herself is a set of kitchen knives and a rolodex of friends who leave her on read.

As you can imagine, Housewarming is a tense film, and as the minutes goes by, a sinking feeling sets in that something bad’s about to happen. It may be 18-minutes long, but it feels like ten, and there was no point at which I found it dragging in any way. The two leads do an excellent job of breathing life into their characters. Charley Clive (Saskia) perfectly captures the before-and-after behavior of someone in a traumatic situation, starting with a lighthearted optimism that shifts into something more wary and paranoid by the end of the short. Her range is truly impressive.

Similarly, Barry Ward (the unwelcome guest) is equal parts sleazy and terrifying, and he totally nails his role as a person who seems charming at first glance, but is fundamentally the kind of man you’d never want to be alone with. Throughout the film, director White maintains the tension without letting the plot fall into cliche, and though there are other films out there that deal with similar situations, this one feels singular and refreshing in its focus.

“I’m glad I did it, but I hope I never have to do that again!”

This isn’t the first film we’ve featured from White, but you can tell that Housewarming was shot at a higher budget level than his previous work, proving that a slightly bigger budget can really pay off. It’s also a reminder that there’s no shame in asking for more money to make something the way you want to make it.

As White explains in a statement, “Housewarming was a much bigger crew than I’m used to (which is normally 4 on set). I used the same techniques I’ve developed over my shorts (which is ultimately to not waste the audience’s time but try to give them the best experience possible), but with more resources. For this one, to be able to finance it, I had to do a crowdfunder. My shame of going around the internet asking for people to part with their cash to help me make my film was outweighed by my desire to get it made. I’m glad I did it, but I hope I never have to do that again!”

We also hope that he doesn’t have to do another crowdfunding campaign for future films – not because there’s anything wrong with that method of funding, but because the process of asking friends and family for money to shoot a film is surely a stressful and exhausting process. Filmmaking is already hard enough – shoots are inherently saddled with logistical snags, scheduling issues, and money-based creative compromises – in today’s financial climate, it seems safer to raise money from investors, producers, and development companies who know the deal. Speaking of which, White is currently in the process of developing a number of feature length projects, with his focus currently on adapting a version of an earlier, BAFTA-longlisted short called Punch Drunk with Escape Plan (Love Lies Bleeding, Saint Maud).

“I really wanted to pull out all the stops as much as I could – always in service of the story, but surround myself with a larger team of specialists than I’d been able to in the past.” – White on the production of Housewarming

Ultimately, Housewarming suggests that maybe homeownership isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be – there’s always a mortgage, after all, and it’s hard to ignore nosy neighbors, expensive repairs, and the loneliness that hangs around an unfurnished house. But the film isn’t necessarily about homeownership, you know? That’s just something to get you in the door. To me, it’s about something much more unsettling: the invasion of personal space, privacy, and boundaries by an unwanted party.

While it stops short of going exactly where you think it might, in a way, it tells a story about consent without really talking about sex all that much. It speaks volumes about the ways in which men tend to pressure women, crossing boundaries, and imposing control over things that aren’t even remotely theirs. And maybe I’m reading too much into the subtext with the following spoiler, but by focusing on the threat of sexual violence instead of the act itself, it also feels a little like a horror movie that shows us the shadow of the monster rather than the monster itself. And sometimes, what isn’t shown is far scarier than the thing itself.