User Reviews

I really like the visual style and atmosphere of the movie. It has a nostalgic feeling that I really like. The backgrounds are quite good, the lighting is perhaps the best thing in the movie, and the music is really lovely. So, a technically good short, and very pleasing to the eye.

The problem is the lack of a proper narrative. Where are the houses going? What are they looking for or searching? Why do they uproot? That is never explained or even hinted in the story.

Also, this is a deja-vu imagery, anthropomorphic whatever: cars, planes or, in this case, houses.

The movie was made by a group of animation students, who certainly have promising careers ahead of them, but without story there is no good film no matter how good the animation is, as the story and the narrative make the film not the contrary.

Overall, a pleasing short, but the lack of a proper story didn't do it for me.

A road movie. It is the simple definition of this lovely short animation. Well crafted, impressive visually, story of two houses in a long travel, sensitive, colorful, it has the virtue to give a profound trace in memory. The sin - maybe the storytelling. The team behind "Home Sweet Home" knows the public of their creation and they suppose than you know the details, you can imagine the nuances, the story is more than familiar. And it is but, in the second part, you are alone. The houses moving, the seasons, the weather are good pillars but not enough because they do not suply the story itself. But sure, as embroidery of memories, it works in beautiful manner.

A house decides it has had enough of being permanently rooted in one place and, with the companionship of an older house, sets off on an adventure.

You can see what this short film had in mind; houses are created as characters (much in the way cars and planes were anthropomorphized by Pixar) and we spend time enjoying these characters before a conclusion where we are touched, moved but also cheered by them. To speak of the film's strongest points, for sure it is the technical delivery of this idea. A student film it may be, but it is also beautiful to look at, with plenty of skill in creating the world and the houses. Personally I felt the houses needed a bit more to them to really draw me in as characters, but they had sufficient character to more or less perform that function. The construct is not just visual though, the use of music is also important and this is mostly well done.

The story is where the work was needed unfortunately. Although the houses go on an adventure, not too much happens – and it happens a bit too slowly for my taste. As a result there is not much to draw the viewer into their lives together, and it does feel like the makers had the idea, and the touching ending in mind, but that the middle bit (the film) came later. This is a shame because everything is well poised to deliver the emotional ending that it is hankering for, but it is rather superficial in nature, not really having the heart that the style suggests it does.

In the end this lack of heart does hurt it, so while it is superficially impressive and done with a certain charm, the characters and their story doesn't really come through in a way that was needed for the viewer to really connect to the material in the way that Pixar (clearly the model) have done so well.