Dzada Selim stars as Mia and Anamaria Marinca as Dita in director Goran Stolevski’s “Housekeeping for Beginners.” It’s hard to fault Goran Stolevski’s “Housekeeping for Beginners” for being chaotic and miserable. That’s the mood he’s after — and he captures it with such assurance that the film is a tough watch.
Stolevski, a Macedonian who emigrated to Australia as a child, explores the bond between outcasts exiled from the culture at large. Our setting is Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia, just a quick drive from Shutka, the country’s largest community of the traditionally nomadic people known as Romani or Roma.
The other adults in her house — Suada , Dita’s Romani girlfriend, and Toni , a gay man who works the night shift at an asylum — don’t help with the bills. But they do contribute to the noise. Suada comes with two daughters from previous relationships, troubled ninth-grader Vanesa and 5-year-old spitfire Mia , and Toni cycles through young hookups. His new boyfriend is a homeless 19-year-old named Ali who, surprisingly enough, is the closest thing the place has to a calming influence.
We’re supposed to pick up on the fact that Dita’s house, which she inherited, is uncommonly large, but the claustrophobic cinematography sticks so close to the actors, it’s hard to see past their faces to the furniture. Naturally, it’s impossible to find silence or keep secrets; scene after scene climaxes with someone cursing and storming away.
Stolevski hurls us into the story and hopes that we’ll catch on to these social intricacies. He wants us to acknowledge that while Dita’s home is hot-tempered and loud, her co-workers’ closed-mindedness and Shutka’s hardscrabble desperation are worse. Compared with the alternatives, he insists — and we come to mostly agree — this maelstrom is actually an oasis worth defending. The film toys with conformity.
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