A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Blistering performances.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The Hotel New Hampshire has to rank up there with maybe the top 10 of weird films I've seen. Not one for the kid's matinée.There's no real plot to this film. Beau Bridges who is a scholarly teacher at a New Hampshire High School has decided to fulfill his dream of owning a hotel and being an innkeeper. He and the family give up all to own and renovate a broken down hotel, first in New Hampshire and then in Vienna. Bridges was sucked into it by a Viennese character played by Wallace Shawn who is known as that most famous Viennese of all, Freud.Beau's family the Berrys certainly have their collection of fruits and nuts in it. Children like Rob Lowe, Jodie Foster, and Seth Green and a crotchety old grandpa played by Wilford Brimley. But interesting characters without a coherent plot is a chair with weak legs.In the best part of the film Jodie Foster gets some sweet revenge for being raped by Matthew Modine. Let's say he gets to understand the victim's point of view.Not the best of work for upcoming stars like Foster and Lowe.

Though not as richly realized as THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, this is still a very successful film version of John Irving's novel. Director Tony Richardson weaves a series of oddities together with this comic tragedy. Beau Bridges and family run a hotel in New Hampshire and have myriad experiences. Some are funny, some are tragic and some are just plain outrageous. There's a plane crash, a rape, a dancing bear and a farting dog named Sorrow. Jodie Foster & Rob Lowe play two uncomfortably close siblings. They both give very good performances. Paul McCrane & Seth Green play two other siblings and a very young Jennifer Dundas is perfect as the melancholy Lilly. Wilford Brimley, Wallace Shawn, Matthew Modine and a very funny Anita Morris are in it too. A oddly cast Nastassja Kinski plays Susie the Bear.

At first, writer-director Richardson seems an odd choice here – until one sees the jokey approach in action, redolent of his much earlier TOM JONES (1963); incidentally, despite being an American film, he brought along top exponents of the "British New Wave" such as cinematographer David Watkin and production/costume designer Jocelyn Herbert. Based on a celebrated satirical novel by John Irving (author of THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP [1982] – which I guess I should get to now), it garnered mixed reactions but I found it quite engaging apart from the occasional heavy-handedness; that said, having read the source material for myself, I have to say that the film falls short of extracting its full potential. There is no real plot to speak of, but a plethora of oddball characters – not just the central family (among them Beau Bridges, Jodie Foster and Rob Lowe…not to mention their compulsively farting dog[!]) but also Wallace Shawn as a cycle-riding Dr. Freud with a bear companion, Nastassja Kinski as the latter's 'replacement' after it is killed(!) and Amanda Plummer as a gawky teen dubbed "Miss Carriage". The film touches on some potentially controversial subjects such as incest (Lowe is obsessed with Foster), homosexuality (of both sexes) and rape (Foster falls foul of Lowe's football buddies, led by a young Matthew Modine – who actually plays two roles!). The acting is uniformly good, with Foster and Kinski (despite a limited role) coming off best. Reportedly, the rock band Queen was supposed to contribute to the soundtrack - with the song 'Keep Passing The Open Windows' (a much-repeated phrase in the film) eventually finding its way onto their album "The Works" from the same year.

This is deceptively packaged as a caring and sharing, romantic tale of endeavour, and goodness only knows what those snuggling down on a rainy Sunday afternoon would make of it. This is not a very American style film even if we do get American football and cheerleaders at the start. This is far more noticeable for it's scenes of attempted rape, male and female gang rape, bestiality, voyeurism, lesbianism, whatever the word for older woman/younger guy, a bear riding a bicycle and a central relationship running throughout that is an incestuous one between brother and sister AND that is consummated at great length. I am not a fan of either Beau Bridges or Jodie Foster but they perform well enough, it is just regrettable that Natasha Kinski spends most of the film in a bear costume. The film loses some direction in Vienna but it is an enjoyable enough very unusual movie.