[6]

Intentionally bizarre and overwrought, I’m not sure what to make of this adaptation of John Irving’s novel about an extended, eccentric family that moves into a down-trodden hotel. I liked a previous Irving adaptation, The World According to Garp, much better. Garp director George Roy Hill was better able to balance the humor and sorrow than Hotel director Tony Richardson. Richardson leans so much toward the comic (speeding up the film? really?), that the meaningful third act falls flat.

Still, there is a good cast playing a bizarre lot of characters, and some heartfelt meaning buried in this off-kilter fable. Rob Lowe and Jodie Foster are good as incestuous siblings, and Nastassja Kinski gives perhaps the best performance in the fim as a woman who wears a bear costume to cover up her perceived ugliness. Also with Beau Bridges, Wilford Brimley, Wallace Shawn, Amanda Plummer, Matthew Modine, and a very young Seth Green.