---
title: "Housekeeping"
year: 1987
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/housekeeping"
fi1m_id: "housekeeping"
imdb_id: "tt0093225"
tmdb_id: 65501
wikidata_id: "Q2672801"
fi1m_score: 78
critics_score: 73
critics_reviews: 5
published: "2026-09-26T01:37:40.264885+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-26T01:37:40.671266+00:00"
region: "CL"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Housekeeping (1987)

Directed by Bill Forsyth · 1h 56m · Comedy, Drama

## Identity

Housekeeping

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/housekeeping
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** housekeeping
- **IMDb ID:** tt0093225
- **TMDB ID:** 65501
- **Wikidata ID:** Q2672801
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093225/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/65501, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2672801

**Fi1m score: 78** · Critics 73 (early) from 5 reviews

*In a sentence:* Your aunt sleeps in her shoes and keeps the tin cans in the parlour, and the town has noticed

> Bill Forsyth’s first American film is slow, odd and quietly upsetting, and Christine Lahti’s Sylvie is one of the strangest, kindest people put on screen in the eighties. Give it patience; it pays back more than it first appears to.

## Synopsis

Fingerbone, a small town on a cold lake in the American northwest, in the fifties. Helen (Margot Pinvidic) drives her two young daughters, Ruth (Sara Walker) and Lucille (Andrea Burchill), to her mother’s house, leaves them on the porch and drives away for good. Their grandmother (Georgie Collins) raises them in her tidy parlour until she dies, and two elderly great-aunts, Lily (Anne Pitoniak) and Nona (Barbara Reese), arrive to take over, fret about the stairs and the winter, and send for the one relative who might manage: Helen’s sister Sylvie (Christine Lahti), a drifter nobody has heard from in years. Sylvie turns up in a thin coat, moves in, and begins keeping house in her own way, while the town’s sheriff (Bill Smillie) and the girls’ principal (Wayne Robson) start to take an interest.

## Review

Bill Forsyth made three comedies in Scotland, *Gregory’s Girl* (1980), [*Local Hero*](https://film.one/film/local-hero) (1983) and *Comfort and Joy* (1984), about men who wanted something mildly and did not quite get it. For his first American film he chose Marilynne Robinson’s novel about two orphaned girls and the aunt who comes to look after them, and wrote the script himself. It is the least funny thing he had made and the most serious, and it is good.

The story is told by Ruth (Sara Walker), the elder sister, in a careful, level voice that sounds like a girl reading back her own diary. Her mother Helen (Margot Pinvidic) drives the two girls to their grandmother’s house in Fingerbone, a lakeside town where the railway crosses the water on a long bridge, and leaves them on the porch. The grandmother (Georgie Collins) raises them until she dies. Two great-aunts, Lily (Anne Pitoniak) and Nona (Barbara Reese), arrive, complain about the cold and the stairs, and send for the girls’ aunt Sylvie, who has been living on trains. She turns up at the door in a thin coat and she stays.

Christine Lahti’s Sylvie is the film. She keeps her coat on indoors. She sleeps on top of the bedclothes with her shoes on, in case she needs to leave. She eats supper with the lights off because she likes the dark, and when the girls ask why, she tells them and passes the potatoes. She saves newspapers in stacks and washed tin cans in towers, and the parlour slowly fills. Lahti plays none of this as eccentricity. Sylvie is polite, attentive, fond of the girls and at all times slightly elsewhere, as if listening for a train a long way off, and the film never once asks us to find her adorable.

The girls are as good as the reviews say. Walker and Burchill look at each other far more than they speak, and the film’s plot, such as it is, happens in those looks. Lucille wants curtains, a mother who turns up at school, friends whose houses smell of cooking; Ruth watches Sylvie and drifts towards her. Burchill gets neater and angrier by the scene, and Walker lets Ruth go vague in a way that is worrying to watch, because we have already seen where vagueness leads in this family. The second half follows the pull between the sisters, and we will leave it there.

Here is what got us. Not the flood, which is the set piece, but the porch at the start. Helen sits in the car for a moment before she drives off, and Forsyth stays with the two girls waiting for her, certain she is coming back. We knew she was not, and it hurt anyway. Later we laughed at Sylvie asking the girls, in the dark kitchen, whether they minded, and then stopped laughing, because Lucille’s face said she minded a great deal, and we realised we had been enjoying the aunt at the niece’s expense.

The film has faults. The middle stretch, with the girls skipping school to sit by the lake, runs longer than it needs to. The townspeople, the sheriff (Bill Smillie), the principal (Wayne Robson) and the church women who call round with casseroles, are drawn as decent people worried in the way decent people are, which is fair-minded of Forsyth but leaves the film short of an opponent. Walker’s narration is meant to be flat and sometimes it is only flat. You feel the length.

Forsyth’s Scottish films ended with men who had lost something small and decided they could live with it. *Housekeeping* takes that shrug and asks what it costs the people left standing on the porch, and for once he lets nobody off. Watch it on a grey afternoon, not with anyone who needs something to happen, and expect Sylvie to be in the house for some days afterwards.

*Fi1m score 78, published 26 September 2026.*

## Straight answers

**Is Housekeeping worth watching?**

*Housekeeping* is worth watching for anyone with patience for a slow, odd, quietly upsetting film about an aunt who sleeps in her shoes, and we scored it 78. Christine Lahti's Sylvie is the reason to see it. Skip it if you need something to happen; the middle stretch by the lake runs long and the narration is sometimes only flat.

**How long is Housekeeping, and what is it rated?**

*Housekeeping* runs 1h 56m. It is a comedy and drama film.

**Where can I watch Housekeeping in Chile?**

*Housekeeping* is not on any streaming or rental service in Chile at the moment. It is available in 1 other country; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily.

**How does Housekeeping compare to Local Hero?**

*Housekeeping* is Bill Forsyth's most serious film, and [*Local Hero*](https://film.one/film/local-hero) is the same drift and kindness with the jokes left in. The earlier film is the warmer and funnier of the two and the easier evening; *Housekeeping* is the sadder and, we think, the braver, because for once Forsyth lets nobody off. Choose by mood, not by quality.

**Is Housekeeping based on a true story or a book?**

*Housekeeping* is based on Marilynne Robinson's novel of the same name, not on a true story, and Forsyth wrote the script himself. We have not compared it line by line with the book, so we cannot say how faithful it is. You need not have read the novel; the film stands on its own.

**What should I watch after Housekeeping?**

After *Housekeeping*, try [*Local Hero*](https://film.one/film/local-hero) (1983, Fi1m 86): Forsyth’s Scottish coast film: the same drift and kindness, with the jokes left in. Then [*Leave No Trace*](https://film.one/film/leave-no-trace) (2018, Fi1m 88): A parent who cannot live indoors, a child who might; watched without judgement; and [*Ratcatcher*](https://film.one/film/ratcatcher) (1999, Fi1m 88): A Glasgow childhood beside dirty water, grief carried quietly, the adults no help at all.

### Reviews we read (5)

- **Los Angeles Times**, MICHAEL WILMINGTON (85/100, inferred): Wilmington finds the film quietly lovely, strange, and emotionally truthful. He especially praises Christine Lahti’s nuanced performance and the film’s stubborn visual poetry. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-12-10-ca-27716-story.html)
- **Radio Times**, David Parkinson (4/5): Parkinson finds the film charming and superbly controlled. He particularly praises the young sisters’ performances and the film’s portrayal of children weathering adults’ upheavals. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-gw9s55/housekeeping/)
- **Variety**, Variety Staff (70/100, inferred): The review finds the film both enervating and exhilarating, while praising its composed, unsentimental observation. It especially singles out the close portrayal of the sisters’ bond, conveyed through the young actors’ body language and looks. [Read](https://variety.com/1986/film/reviews/housekeeping-1117791779/)
- **The New York Times**, Janet Maslin (64/100, inferred): The review text is inaccessible, so its verdict and specific praise or criticism cannot be reliably summarized. The available page does not reveal what the critic singled out. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/25/movies/film-forsyth-s-housekeeping.html)
- **Time Out**, EP (64/100, inferred): The page identifies this as a review, but its verdict is unavailable. No praise or complaint can be established from the visible metadata. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/housekeeping)

## Details

- **Director:** Bill Forsyth
- **Director:** Bill Forsyth
- **Writer:** Bill Forsyth
- **Novel:** Marilynne Robinson
- **Cinematography:** Michael Coulter
- **Editor:** Michael Ellis
- **Music:** Michael Gibbs
- **Production design:** Adrienne Atkinson
- **Costume design:** Mary-Jane Reyner
- **Producer:** Robert F. Colesberry
- **Cast:** Christine Lahti as Sylvie Fisher; Sara Walker as Ruth; Andrea Burchill as Lucille; Anne Pitoniak as Aunt Lily; Barbara Reese as Aunt Nona; Margot Pinvidic as Helen; Bill Smillie as Sheriff; Wayne Robson as Principal
- **Runtime:** 1h 56m
- **First release (Brazil):** 25 November 1987
- **Genres:** Comedy, Drama
- **Budget:** $6 million
- **Box office:** $1 million

## Where to watch in Chile

Not streaming, renting or buying in Chile at the last check.

Also available in: US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Local Hero* (1983), Fi1m 86: Forsyth’s Scottish coast film: the same drift and kindness, with the jokes left in — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/local-hero.md)
- *Leave No Trace* (2018), Fi1m 88: A parent who cannot live indoors, a child who might; watched without judgement — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/leave-no-trace.md)
- *Ratcatcher* (1999), Fi1m 88: A Glasgow childhood beside dirty water, grief carried quietly, the adults no help at all — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/ratcatcher.md)
- *The Spirit of the Beehive* (1973), Fi1m 87: Two sisters, a silent house and a landscape doing the talking, in Franco’s Spain — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-spirit-of-the-beehive.md)
- *Paper Moon* (1973): An orphan and an unfit guardian on the road; funnier, but the same wary love

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/housekeeping