Review of Miu Miu Women’s Tales #23 “House Comes With A Bird” Film by Director Janicza Bravo
Miu Miu has shared the latest installment of its ongoing film series in which the house commissions leading women directors to bring their unique narratives of contemporary femininity to life. The 23rd film in the series is director Janicza Bravo’s “House Comes With A Bird,” an airy and languid cinematic consideration of person and place.
The film’s simple narrative follows Jean – played by musician and first-time film actor Kelsey Lu, who also, impressively, composed the film’s score – as she helps her boss, a real estate agent, show a beautiful modern house to potential buyers while said boss is away. As suggested by the title and as we learn from an almost uncomfortably curt conversation midway through the film, the house comes with the original owner’s bird, a macaw who has developed an affinity for the space.
Quiet, slow-moving, and gorgeously shot, the film’s strongest success is its sense of mood. While the conversations with the potential buyers and the drama of manners they suggest is ostensibly the focal point of the film, the dialogue almost feels like an unnecessary distraction from its real protagonist: the space itself, and the music. Bathed in the sunshine of a perpetual Los Angeles afternoon, the home is captured with reverent delicacy, with beautiful long shots creating an enveloping sense of warmth and peace. Deepening this mood, Lu’s atmospheric, delicately building score fills up the space like liquid sunlight.
While Jean may not be the owner of this home, the potential buyers feel more like intruders into her space. In this sense, she has a symbolic affinity to the macaw: they both belong to this house; the bird is literally caged, while Jean is kept away from the space she has musical command over by class and social conventions. These themes never become obvious, but they are subtly raised as questions threaded through the film’s aesthetic beauty, creating a curious – perhaps musical – sense of tension and release.
As always in the Women’s Tales series, Miu Miu collections provide the costumes and support each character’s distinct presence, but never feel like the film’s focal point. With its consideration of social convention and unconventional muses – whether woman, bird, or house – the film is another strong furthering of the Women’s Tales project. Miuccia Prada continues to do great work with her directorial picks, creating an unfolding space for artistic dialogue and a thoughtful consideration on the power and problems of women’s dressing today.
Miu Miu Creative Director | Miuccia Prada
Director | Janicza Bravo
Cast | Kelsey Lu, Natasha Lyonne, Pedro Pascal, Katherine Waterston, and Poorna Jagannathan