Product Details

• Actors: Steve Martin, Goldie Hawn, Dana Delany, Julie Harris, Donald Moffat
• Directors: Frank Oz
• Writers: Brian Grazer, Mark Stein
• Producers: Bernard Williams, Brian Grazer, Karen Kehela Sherwood, Michelle Wright
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Universal Studios
• VHS Release Date: March 26, 1996
• Run Time: 102 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302579449
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #176,336 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The teaming of Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn would seem to have been sure-fire casting, but Housesitter's writing is never strong enough to sustain it and the film's hit-and-miss quality has more misses than hits. Martin plays an architect who builds his dream house for his high school sweetheart (Dana Delany), then surprises her with a marriage proposal--both of which she rejects. Distraught, he goes back to New York and pours out his heart to a woman he meets in a bar and beds (Hawn), not realizing she is a flaky con artist. She knows a good thing when she hears it and heads for his hometown, moves into the empty dream house, and begins passing herself off as Martin's new wife. Though the writers build in a variety of complications (involving Delany, as well as Martin's parents and boss), the film finds its jokes only in fits and starts, though Martin has a particularly hilarious moment when he must sing to his father in front of a crowd of strangers. --Marshall Fine

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lots of Laughs, December 6, 2004

By 

Laura De Giorgio "hypnotherapist" (Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Housesitter (DVD)

A charming comedy played superbly by Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn.

Martin plays a decently successful architect and uses his talent to build a house for his high-school sweatheart. He is rather romantically inclined and presents her with this engagement gift wrapped in a big red ribbon. This scares away his high-school sweatheart as she interprets it as him being too imaginative and living in the fantasy-land than being a down-to-earth man, she'd prefer to be with.

Heartbroken, he ends up in a Hungarian restaurant to wash away his woes and eventually pours out his heart to a waitress, played by Goldie Hawn, who doesn't stop a beat to take advantage of the situation. She is an adventurous free-spirit, endowed with wild imagination, who believes that life is to be experienced and she'll do whatever it takes to experience the richness of life.

After spending one night with the architect, she promptly packs and unbeknonst to him, move into his newly built house. After all, why leave such a lovely house empty? She quickly gets acquainted with local people, charges everything to the architect's account and gets to meet even his parents, to him she presents herself as the architect's wife. As unique as she is - an acquired taste, as her make-believe inlaws would say, she has a very charming personality and everybody delights in her presence. Whatever the situation, she always has a ready answer, often backed with a wild and outrageous story.

When Martin shows up at his newly-built house and finds her there, he is at first stunned, but figures that the only way to get out of it is by incorporating and continuing her make-believe stories and inventing that they are now getting divorced. Not only her parents get involved, but also the local priest, who acts as a marriage counsellor, attempting to help them rescue the marriage.

Steve Martin is not so good at coming with impromptu answers and he usually botches things up, but Goldie Hawn, quite experienced at playing the game, always manages to rescue the situation. She utterly enjoys playing the game and continues playing her own agenda. She even manages to get him promoted.
All the events draw attention of his high-school sweatheart who develops some new interest in him - though they face themselves once again with their individual preferences as Martin discovers that he much prefers to live in a wild and imaginary world of Goldie Hawn, which has infused him with added spice and zest for life.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent screwball comedy vehicle for Steve & Goldie, May 5, 2004

By 

R.L. Holly "piper909" (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Housesitter (DVD)

I wish more projects were assembled for this tag-team of born screwball comedy geniuses, because "Housesitter" offers a great display of how well Martin and Hawn work together onscreen. Their senses of timing are tremendous and both have a gift for physical comedy and wringing the best out of every line of dialogue. I disagree with the Amazon staff reviewer, I think this movie is very well constructed, with a tight plotline and just the right balance of jokes and exposition. Not a word or scene is wasted. The humor is absurdist but good-natured, as in older-style films, and the supporting cast does standout service. This is a very underrated comedy, in my view, and I give it a high recommendation for fans of either of these fine actors or zany comedy in general. A very refreshing change from in-you-face gross-out jokes and sophomoric scatalogical/sexual put-down gags that pass as "comedy" in so many films today.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful!, July 21, 2005

By 

Mark Stewart "A Watcher" (Sacramento, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Housesitter (DVD)

Most of us know the story. I'm just going to add my favorate scenes and thoughts. Becky didn't deserve Newton. She turned his marriage proposal down because she did not see the value in his creativity and vision. We get a real sense of what Gwen is feeling the first time she sees the house. Imagine this: You are walking thru a brand new house that was custom designed by someone you know. No one has ever lived in it, and the person it was offered to has turned it down. Gwen thought the house was so beautiful that she sat out side of the house and stared at it in amazement! Although she initially didn't want Newton around because of her con, we know that she could see the value of the man. This is the focus of the story: not the house but the story of a woman recognizing the quailites of Newton.

One of my favorite movies!