The Hotel New Hampshire (film)
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| The Hotel New Hampshire | |
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 The Hotel New Hampshire film poster |
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| Directed by | Tony Richardson |
| Produced by | Neil Hartley Pieter Kroonenburg David J. Patterson |
| Written by | John Irving (novel) Tony Richardson |
| Starring | Jodie Foster Beau Bridges Rob Lowe Nastassja Kinski Wilford Brimley |
| Cinematography | David Watkin |
| Editing by | Robert K. Lambert |
| Distributed by | Orion Pictures |
| Release date(s) | March 9, 1984 |
| Running time | 109 min. |
| Country | UK / Canada / US |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $7,500,000 (estimated) |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Hotel New Hampshire is a 1984 film based on a 1981 novel of the same name by John Irving. The film was directed by Tony Richardson and stars Jodie Foster, Rob Lowe and Beau Bridges. The film also features Wilford Brimley, Amanda Plummer, and a young Seth Green in a supporting role.
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[edit] Plot summary
The Hotel New Hampshire is narrated by John Berry (Lowe) and opens in flashback to the time when his parents met and fell in love while working summer jobs at a New England hotel around World War II. They are brought together by Freud, a European refugee who travels with a performing bear.
In the 1950s, Win (Bridges) and his wife have five children, John, Franny (Foster), Frank (Paul McCrane), Lilly (Jennifer Dundas) and Egg (Green). The Berrys decide to open a hotel near the prep school that John, Franny and Frank attend. They call it the Hotel New Hampshire. Among the things that happen: John loses his virginity to the hotel maid; Frank comes out to Franny and John; Franny is raped by BMOC Chipper Dove (Matthew Modine) and his buddies and is rescued by Junior Jones (Dorsey Wright) and other black members of the school football team; John confesses that he's in love with Franny; the family dog, Sorrow, dies and Egg has him stuffed. Sorrow's reappearance at Christmas causes Berry grandfather Iowa Bob (Brimley) to suffer a heart attack and die.
A letter arrives from Austria. It's Freud, inviting the Berrys to move to Vienna and run Freud's gasthaus. The family flies to Europe; tragically, the plane carrying Mrs. Berry and Egg explodes, killing them.
In Vienna, the family moves into the gasthaus and renames it Hotel New Hampshire. An upper floor houses prostitutes and the basement is occupied by radicals of various political stripes. Assisting Freud, who has gone blind, is Susie the Bear (Kinski) a young lesbian woman who lives her life almost completely in a bear costume. One of the radicals, Ernst, resembles Chipper Dove (and is also played by Modine) and Franny becomes infatuated with him. Susie, who's quickly fallen in love with Franny, and John try to keep Franny away from him. Susie is initially successful in seducing Franny but soon she ends up with Ernst. Lilly, who's a dwarf, begins writing a novel called Learning to Grow.
One of the radicals, Miss Miscarriage (Plummer), grows very fond of the family and especially of Lilly. She invites John to her flat and sleeps with him, then warns him to get the family out of Vienna. For her trouble, another of the radicals murders her. Back at the hotel, John and the rest of the family are caught up in the radicals' plan to blow up the Vienna State Opera with a car bomb. The blind Freud, to spare the family, volunteers to drive with one of the radicals. As he leaves, the Berrys attack the remainng radicals and Freud detonates the bomb right outside the hotel. Ernst is killed and Win is blinded in the explosion.
Hailed as heroes by the Austrians, the Berry family decides to return home. Lilly's novel is published and the interest in the Berry's story leads to a biopic, written by Lilly and starring Franny as herself. The Berrys are in New York City when John and Franny run into Chipper Dove on the streets. They lure him to their hotel suite and take their revenge upon him, including apparently having Susie sodomize him while she's in her bear costume, until Franny calls it off.
Meanwhile, John's love for Franny has not abated. She finally calls him over to her room and, in hopes of getting him over it once and for all, has sex with him for almost a day.
Franny's Hollywood career is beginning to take off, with Frank acting as her agent and with Junior Jones back in the picture, but Lilly's writing career has stalled, Her second novel is not well received and, depressed and suffering from writer's block, she takes her own life.
As the film draws to a close, John is staying with his father at the latest Hotel New Hampshire, which stands empty. Susie comes to stay with them and she and John become involved. Win heartily approves because, as he puts it, every hotel needs a bear.
[edit] "Keep passing the open windows"
This phrase recurs throughout the film as a catchphrase among the Berry family. It is drawn from a story that the Berry parents tell their children, about a street performer called "The King of Mice." Saying "keep passing the open windows" is the family's way of telling each other to persevere. Lilly kills herself by jumping, having failed to pass that open window.
The band QUEEN was asked by producers to compose a song for the movie. Freddie Mercury and his bandmates composed the song KEEP PASSING THE OPEN WINDOWS that ended up on their "The Works" album, but finally didn't make it in the movie.
[edit] DVD release
The Hotel New Hampshire was released on Region 1 DVD on July 10, 2001.
