Freud's Interpretation of the Film Life as a House

“Life As A House” and Freud.


In the movie Life as a House, the character of Sam, a Marilyn-Manson listening teenager with blue hair and multiple piercings played by Hayden Christiansen wakes up one morning, sniffs glue and then attempts to hang himself from a pole in his closet. The pole can’t support his weight and it breaks, causing his mother and two younger step brothers to find him with a towel around his neck, seeming to be dejected that his plan had failed. As the movie progresses, he lashes out at his family members, his mom, step-brothers, step father, who always seems to be working, and his biological father who was fired from his job of 20 years, and is hiding the fact that he has only a few months to live.
George, Sam’s father takes Sam to his house for the summer to help him build a house, so he has something to remember him by when he is dead. By the end of the...