HOUSE OF CARDS Tribute to Miramax: Ten Years of Hits

First time feature director/writer Michael Lessee’s House of Cards is a hauntwho cinema11g, visually striking new drama about the mysterious world of a child’s imagination, which in his words explores “the conflict between two ways of seeing what none of us understand.” A compelling and intelligent story, House of Cards paints the heartwarming journey of a mother’s struggle to understand her child. Starring Kathleen Turner and To mmy Lee Jones, this fascinating film tells the provocative story of Ruth (Kathleen Tu rner), an American architect who returns to the States with her two children after losing her husband pll an accident in Mexico, only to be faced with her five-year-old daughter Sally’s (Asha Menina) sudden and inexplicable retreat into an impenetrable rivate world. As Sally ceases speaking and begins to display increasingly extraordinary behavior–brazenly climbing trees, barking like a hyena, even building an incredible, spiraling house of cards-Ruth is forced to solicit the assistance of a psychiatrist (Tommy Lee Jones, who specializes in the treatment of autistic children. Set to James Homer’s hauntingly hollow sounds, House of Cards is both a family story, and an intriguing glimpse into the great unknown areas of human behavior, with Turner sympathetic as the protective mother, Jones’ crisp portrayal of the psychiatrist running pleasingly against stereotype, and Asha Menina appropriately vulnerable and distant as the traumatized Sally.” -Duane Byrge, Hollywood Reporter.