Film Review: House of Saddam

A new HBO biopic tries to unveil Saddam’s humanity, but it’s more fun watching Hussein’s family than the cold-blooded dictator.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The posters advertising HBO’s Saddam biopic look a lot like parodies of The Sopranos posters of old. And there’s good reason: House of Saddam is less a story of a dictator (played by Igal Naor) than a dramatization of Saddam Hussein’s private life. The characters in both series are similar. There’s the overbearing, politically savvy mother, a neglected and slightly tragic wife (Shohreh Aghdashloo), and a glamorous mistress. There are also some graphic representations of murder and torture, but that’s where the resemblance to Hollywood mafia ends. Saddam’s world feels smaller than life, perhaps because the director made the limiting decision to remain as close to reality as possible, even recreating clothes seen in family pictures. But House of Saddam isn’t a documentary, so it’s hard to understand why the director insists on living in a factual netherworld that is limited to historical accuracy and yet, because of its dramatic nature, cannot conform to it wholeheartedly.

House of Saddam is broken into four one-hour parts, beginning with Saddam’s July 1979 takeover of the Baath party. He gets rid of opposing politicians by accusing them of an attempted assassination plot (after which they are handily assassinated themselves) and installs family members to take their positions. It’s hard to feel any compassion for such a cold-blooded character, because even in Saddam’s free time he’s cheating on his devoted wife or selling off his daughter’s hand to the most politically attractive suitor. In fact, Saddam’s family, and his time spent with them, is far more interesting than his political machinations. When wandering in Saddam’s home turf near Tikrit, he extols the virtues of living in the cradle of civilization. His young son, Uday, complains he’s hot. Saddam turns to him with a look of disbelief. “You are your mother’s son. Of course you’re hot!” he exclaims. “You’re in the desert!” He all but slaps the kid upside the head, showing that even he doesn’t get a free pass.

The adult Uday is addicting in a performance by Philip Arditti. Impatiently power-hungry in the way of eldest sons, Uday is like a one-man soap opera. He will viciously beat a man to death at a party for little reason, then half an hour later become so ashamed and fearful of his father’s reaction that he tries to commit suicide. Uday’s loose-cannon antics, plus Bollywood-style propaganda videos and an autobiographical movie Saddam commissioned, keep House of Saddam watchable. Inexplicably, though much of the film focuses on Saddam’s political manipulations, the bloodiest bits (e.g. gassing of the Kurds) are glossed over in favor of closed-door meetings that have all the appeal of C-SPAN.

Many of the meetings discuss how to deal with “the Americans.” George Bush Sr. and Jr. are seen as vicious hound dogs, constantly nipping at Saddam’s heels and beleaguering the tired dictator in his rare moments of rest. But watching Saddam rule, the point comes across that he and Bush Jr. had more in common than they had differences. Both leaders ruled based on emotional, gut decisions, and both left their countries bankrupt and in bad standing with the international community. Oil is at the heart of both their native lands. Maybe the key difference was that Saddam had to fight, and murder, his way to the top while Bush was simply born on it. And while Saddam clung desperately to his power, even while hiding in a foxhole, Bush seems all too glad to let it simply slip away.

House of Saddam, parts 1 and 2 premiere December 7 at 9 p.m. on HBO. Parts 3 and 4 premiere December 17.

Jen Phillips is an assistant editor at Mother Jones.

Photo courtesy of HBO Films

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate