about the film

BIG HOUSE tells the story of two sisters, their romantic relationships, their father, their (different) mothers, their baggage and hang ups, and, finally, all the different ways we treat one another in our daily lives, and the complicated and impossible-to-pin-down reasons we do so. It takes place in a medium-sized house that plays host to a big crisis and a big lie. Seeing as I don’t have the heart to judge any of the characters involved, I hope the movie doesn’t either. In fact, I hope more than anything that folks watching will disagree with one another about who was right, who was wrong, who they sided with, who they felt for, who they were attracted to, and why. Life is filled with these complicated allegiances and affinities and I think it ought to be the role of small movies to remind us that we’re mostly all coming from an understandable place. 

BIG HOUSE is my most personal work to date. I am one of my father's six kids, spread across three marriages. My sister Kathleen and I have three older half-siblings and a younger half-brother. Between us, our ages all span over 30 years. Dad had children and marriages and affairs consistently for most of his life. He brims with love for his children. He is perhaps the most selfless and most selfish man I’ve known. With this story I wanted to try and convey what it’s like to be close with a half-sibling and to be a part of a complicated multi-family structure. I wanted to show kids who saw their Dad as a good father but a bad husband — and allowed that contradiction to exist in their relationship. 

All of us siblings have complicated relationships with Dad. We are all similar to him in personality and looks. We differ in the anger we carry from the divorces and the cheating.  I wanted to make a movie about that character, but I wanted him to exist in his own absence. I guess that’s a complicated way of saying I wanted to make a movie about his kids.