Is 'A House On Fire' a true story? More about the 2021 drama film

A House On Fire is a psychological crime thriller based on the life of Deborah Green. The movie features actors like Stephanie March, Shaun Benson, Connor Peterson and Isla Gorton. Read more to find out A House On Fire real story

Is A House On Fire a true story?

A House On Fire is a movie based on the real-life story of Deborah Green, who was sentenced to two continuous terms for 40 years in prison for causing the fire that burned down her house and her two kids. Deborah was a doctor from Kansas and started sinking into depression due to her troubled marriage. When Deborah's husband demanded a divorce and full custody of their kids, she set their house on fire with her kids still inside.

A House On Fire movie review 

Stephanie March plays the role of Deborah Green and Shaun Benson by her side plays the role of her husband, Dr Michael 'Mike' Farrar. Many critics commented that the cast did an exceptionally good job in their depictions of the real-life characters. In the movie, Connor Peterson and Isla Gorton are shown as Deborah's kids while in real life, Deborah had 3 kids out of which 2 died In the fire. The movie starts from the end, with the disaster of the fire as the main focus of the story, and shows a hopeless Deborah screaming and shouting for help. Soon after, the scene changes and portrays the happier years in the flashback when she was an excellent doctor at the peak of her career and how she met her future husband and started the perfect family with him, all this was from her scrapbook. 

Green is shown to be jealous of her husband Farrar's success, and her 'inner demons' push her farther down the dark path of addiction, drug abuse and depression. During this time, Farrar begins an affair with someone he knew for a long time and flirted with. 

The kids are shown all the way to the end to be very supportive of their mother and almost denouncing their father for neglecting their mother. Meanwhile, Deborah, who is always wary about her mental illness, refuses therapy and descends further into a depth of darkness, as she passes the limits of normal behaviour in front of her kids. She is shown to get drunk and cursing constantly in front of her kids while trying to handle a turbulent marriage. Ultimately, after the family situation intensifies to police intervention, she appears apparently vibrant and even changed for the better, after an intensive session with a psychiatrist. 

However, it is soon found out how all of it might just be a mask as she tries to poison Mike repeatedly, using poison in controlled amounts, to avoid raising suspicion. The ultimate breaking point comes when Farrar threatens her to take full custody of their kids upon their divorce. To stop that from happening, she sets the house on fire with her children still asleep inside.

Viewers have rated this movie a 7 out of 10 on IMDb. On the other hand, users of sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic are yet to leave a rating.