House of Games (1987)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: David Mamet

Writers: David Mamet, Jonathan Katz

Cinematographer: Juan Ruiz Anchía

Composer: Alaric Jans

Cast: Lindsay Crouse, Joe Mantegna, Mike Nussbaum, Lilia Skala, J.T. Walsh, Ricky Jay

Understated and unpredictable, Mamet’s Bressonian directorial debut – a thriller of sorts, in which Crouse’s icy psychiatrist finds herself seduced into a world of gamblers and confidence tricksters when she attempts to aid a suicidal patient of hers, a compulsive gambler, who owes a great deal of money at the eponymous gambling establishment – proves to be an intriguing work of great intensity and searing psychological enquiry. Iain.Stott