When Dr. Mike Farrar met Dr. Debra "Deb" Green, it was a relationship that seemed too good to be true. As it turned out, it was exactly that: too good to be true.
"Ann Rule's A House on Fire" is a melodramatic domestic tragedy with overtones of another operatic burning house saga film: "Manchester By the Sea." In this case, however, the film brings in overtones of the story of Medea who kills her children out of spite for her husband.
A central image for the film is the scrapbook kept by Deb that embodies all her hopes and dreams: job, house, kids. Unfortunately, in Deb's twisted mind, she is using those objects for her own ego to cover her lifelong insecurity.
It stretched credibility to think that Mike would stick around for as long as he did as he witnessed his Deb's monumental meltdown. He recognized her addiction, both to drugs and booze, but she also invested far too much personal significance in a house. The mansion at 2002 Canterbury Court was supposed to be her dream house. But for the poor children, it turned into a death trap due to Deb's latest addiction: pyromania. The film made it absolutely clear that she wanted the children dead as payback to the father.
"A House on Fire" was not a great film. But it had enough of the same compelling power of personal suffering and the response of evil, as practiced by Medea: a gifted and brilliant woman who harnesses her magic powers in the wrong way. In the Greek legend of Medea as told by Euripides, Medea flies off in her chariot in the end after killing her babies. In the case of Deb Green, she will serve two consecutive 40-year prison sentences in which she may contemplate her scrapbook while wearing an orange jumpsuit.
"Ann Rule's A House on Fire" is a melodramatic domestic tragedy with overtones of another operatic burning house saga film: "Manchester By the Sea." In this case, however, the film brings in overtones of the story of Medea who kills her children out of spite for her husband.
A central image for the film is the scrapbook kept by Deb that embodies all her hopes and dreams: job, house, kids. Unfortunately, in Deb's twisted mind, she is using those objects for her own ego to cover her lifelong insecurity.
It stretched credibility to think that Mike would stick around for as long as he did as he witnessed his Deb's monumental meltdown. He recognized her addiction, both to drugs and booze, but she also invested far too much personal significance in a house. The mansion at 2002 Canterbury Court was supposed to be her dream house. But for the poor children, it turned into a death trap due to Deb's latest addiction: pyromania. The film made it absolutely clear that she wanted the children dead as payback to the father.
"A House on Fire" was not a great film. But it had enough of the same compelling power of personal suffering and the response of evil, as practiced by Medea: a gifted and brilliant woman who harnesses her magic powers in the wrong way. In the Greek legend of Medea as told by Euripides, Medea flies off in her chariot in the end after killing her babies. In the case of Deb Green, she will serve two consecutive 40-year prison sentences in which she may contemplate her scrapbook while wearing an orange jumpsuit.
