Keyhole (2012)

65% of critics liked it
(23 reviews)
54% of users liked it
(182 ratings)

After a long absence, gangster and father Ulysses Pick (Jason Patric) arrives home to a house haunted with memories, towing the body of a teenaged girl and a bound and gagged young man. His gang waits inside his house, having shot their way past police. There is friction in the ranks. Ulysses,… More After a long absence, gangster and father Ulysses Pick (Jason Patric) arrives home to a house haunted with memories, towing the body of a teenaged girl and a bound and gagged young man. His gang waits inside his house, having shot their way past police. There is friction in the ranks. Ulysses, however, is focused on one thing: journeying through the house, room by room, and reaching his wife Hyacinth (Isabella Rossellini) in her bedroom upstairs. The equilibrium of the house has been disturbed and his odyssey eventually becomes an emotional tour, as the ghostly nooks and crannies of the house reveal more about the mysterious Pick family. -- (C) Official Site

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Rating, Runtime: R, 1 hr. 33 min.
Directed By: Guy Maddin
Genres: Drama, Art House & International, Mystery & Suspense

In Theaters: Apr 6, 2012 Limited
On DVD: Jun 18, 2012
Studio: Monterey Media

Critic Reviews

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader
Funny enough to be disarming even when it's spinning its wheels thematically.
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
A Maddin film has a disturbing way of always seeming to exist in the present, like a dream. You know what happened and you even know what will happen, but you also see it all shifting and changing.
Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail
Like Maddin's melancholic and relatively more conventional My Winnipeg, Keyhole is about a memory house, but one that is even more fragmented, mythical and elusive.
Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times
Amid the mythical allusions and the climate of decay, "Keyhole" overthinks its exploration of memory and forgiveness.
Peter Howell, Toronto Star
Count me - and hopefully you - amongst Keyhole's grateful dead.
Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger
Yes, sometimes the whole thing comes together like a poem or an early surrealist experiment. But too often, it just seems like a jumble of fantasies and daydreams.
Laura Clifford, Reeling Reviews
The film is creepy, depraved and often funny and Maddin's most perverse outing since "Tales from the Gimli Hospital," but although it compels through most of its running time, it doesn't quite sustain through the home stretch.
Brent Simon, Shockya.com
Characteristically full of some beautiful and evocative images, Maddin's latest film seems doggedly intent on achieving art status merely through obfuscation.
Cole Smithey, ColeSmithey.com
Think of "Keyhole" as an avant-garde melodrama to cleanse you palate of all of the insipid Hollywood crap you've ever seen over the years. You need it.
Todd Jorgenson, Cinemalogue.com
The film is wildly uneven and has a defiant sense of impenetrability.
Alonso Duralde, The Wrap
Maddin's new film Keyhole reminds us that his aesthetic owes as much to David Lynch as it does to F.W. Murnau, and not just because Lynch's onetime muse Isabella Rossellini co-stars.
Ethan Alter, Film Journal International
Black-and-white cinematography, free-association storytelling, an obsession with the past, and the presence of Isabella Rossellini...yup, it's another Guy Maddin joint.
Chris Cabin, Filmcritic.com
Keyhole offers no promise of landing on solid ground or breaking through the atmosphere. It's a perpetual acid-trip comedown.
Dave White, Movies.com
It's a story about stories, a dream about dreams and a movie about movies, the kind that rewards repeat viewings.
James Rocchi, The Playlist
With the locked and puzzling Keyhole, you get a sense of a filmmaker who's lost sight of how to take his audience along with him.