House of Cards

Ever since her father, an archaeologist, died on a Mayan expedition in Mexico, little Sally has gone silent. She also reacts distraught (and disturbing to others) to the slightest changes in her environment. Mother Ruth (Kathleen Turner), who returns to the USA with her two children after the accidental death and moves to a quiet suburb, is disturbed. Especially when Sally begins to erect a huge house of playing cards, photographs and postcards in her children's room. When child psychiatrist Jake Beerlander (Tommy Lee Jones) meets the six-year-old, the diagnosis seems clear: autism. The mother, on the other hand, sees the traumatic experience of loss as the root of her suffering. This house of cards, which the architect Ruth builds in a piece of woodland in survival size, seems to symbolize Sally's inner life - and it serves as the mother's literal access to her lost daughter. Michael Lessac achieves the feat of turning a story that on paper seems rather overstretched into a production that actually appeals to both the heart and the mind. Supported by the superb acting of Kathleen Turner and the young debutante actress Asha Menina, a touching mother-daughter drama develops that revolves around questions of childhood trauma, exceptional family circumstances and how the adult world deals with mentally unstable children whose world is thrown out of kilter.