The arrival of a baby can have a big impact on someone’s life (as I will be a father myself in a couple of weeks, I will be able to confirm this pretty soon).
Former stewardess Lea (Carice van Houten) is a housewife who lives in a beautiful house while her husband Harry (Waldemar Torenstra) makes his living as an architect. Although Lea isn’t too excited about the idea of having a baby, she does become pregnant. Once the baby is born her world collapses. She sees the little boy as a threat to her happy life and has a nervous breakdown, which gets so bad that the baby is in danger. This is enough reason for Harry to take action and make sure that Lea gets some time to gets her thoughts together.
Carice van Houten owns the movie completely (as she manages to do in others as well). She manages to create a character that is searching for her own identity while being unpredictable and extreme at times. It’s a very convincing performance. Despite her personal struggles you do feel for her and hope that she manages to solve her problems. At the same time you don’t know (like the other characters in the movie) whether she can be her old self again.
The Happy Housewife offers a lot of drama mixed with very black humour in the form of sarcasm. As you know which issues Lea has it’s almost hard to laugh about it. As a viewer you are submerged in an emotional ride, which reminded me a bit of the journey Natalie Portman made in Black Swan and is as convincing because of van Houten’s acting. Enough reason to watch this dutch movie.
[score8]