The Heart of Me
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Movie Reviews of The Heart of Me
Movie Review: Terribly English...spit-spot,chin up Period drama that the actors make excel
Summary: 5 Stars
Honestly, I don't think that there is anything terrifically original or different about Lucinda Coxon's screenplay THE HEART OF ME. 1936,London.Rickie is married to Madeleine.It is socially a good match,but Rickie loves Madeleine's "Bohemian " sister,Dinah.An affair begins and no one wins...all get hurt.Chin up...press on,don't you know...ENGLISH!(I am UK descent, so I know!)
BUT...the acting strengths of Paul Bettany as the tortured Rickie,Olivia Williaws as the devoted and controlling Madeleine, and Helena Bonham-Carter as Dinah are all so uniformly inhabiting the strengths and weaknesses of their characters, that this BBC Prod is far,far better than it might have been otherwise.Bettany (before his stint as Silas in The Da Vinci Code (Widescreen Two-Disc Special Edition) is IMO the find in this film.He is so utterly sensitive and vulnerable as Rickie, which is frankly refreshing for an Englishman in an English Period Piece.The sisters have their own wounds to heal, but it is Bettany that really impresses in HEART OF ME.
The DVD extras are limited, but the commentary is quite insightful from director Thaddeus O'Sullivan.
The lush romantic soundtrack by Nicholas Hooper, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Widescreen Edition) as well as his up and coming soundtrack for the final HARRY POTTER, is expressive and almost co-stars in this pert 96 minute SHOWTIME ORIGINAL.Loved it!
Movie Review: The heart of me
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie is excellent. This is a story about how destructive passion can be when focused in the wrong place.Movie Review: Broken Love
Summary: 4 Stars
Rosamund Lehmann's beautiful novels about love and infidelity always had titles as poetic as all get-out, that would translate badly into film titles: the 1953 novel, THE ECHOING GROVE, which she used as the capstone for the major part of her literary career, was no exception. Why the producers of this adaptation of that novel would have instead settled on a title nearly as oblique is something of a mystery, but is almost certainly why this lovely and evocative (if finally somewhat unsatisfying) period drama did not receive much notice when it was released in the United States. But it's worth a look especially for fans of the fine British actresses Olivia Williams and Helena Bonham-Carter, who are allowed two of their best and most challenging roles in their very sumptuous film.
In 1935, the handsome and charismatic Rickie Masters (Paul Bettany) is married to and has a child with the cool and proper Madeleine (Williams), but longs for her Bohemian sister Dinah Burkett (Bonham-Carter). The two embark upon an affair which ultimately results in an unexpected tragedy; when Madeleine discovers the news she is devastated, and forces Rickie to choose. Although he ultimately decides to leave her for Dinah. Madeleine, with the help of the Burkett sisters' elegant mother (the formidable Eleanor Bron), practices a deception that brings Rickie back to her. Years later after the war (and Rickie's death), the two sisters must learn to appreciate the other's losses and reconcile.
Bonham-Carter's early career resulted in her being typecast in period roles, and since then she stays mostly away from them unless the part is impossible to turn down (as in THE WINGS OF THE DOVE). That she should have chose to do this role signifies how beautifully written it is and what an opportunity it allows for her to do: her older Dinah is the same woman as we see Bonham-Carter play ten years younger, but her years of unhappiness and loneliness give her a deeper sense of human understanding and dull her selfishness. Olivia Williams gets the rare chance to play a film role worthy of her talents, and her Madeleine grows from being a repressed and resentful woman to someone also more giving and kindly (but only after some catharsis). The screenplay perhaps skimps a bit on the causes of this change, and the producers also make a fundamental error in casting the pallid Paul Bettany as Rickie, the object of the two sisters' squabbling. His is the sort of role Ralph Fiennes always plays--the charismatic successful loner driven nearly to madness by love--, but Bettany is far too bland to bring off the role with the kind of panache Fiennes always delivers. The sets and costumes are exquisite, as are some of the exterior shots filmed on the Isle of Man (doubling for the English Southern coast).
Movie Review: Poor Plot Makes Leads Unsympathetic
Summary: 2 Stars
Despite the effort to romanticize it, "the Heart of Me" is a pretty grubby story. A woman has an affair with her sister's husband. The sister catches on. Emotional mayhem ensues.
I watched this movie because it stars Helena Bonham-Carter who I admire. She plays the woman who betrays her sister. But even her charisma and acting ability couldn't salvage this movie for me. Why is that?
I think it all comes down to this. If two people have an affair, it's necessary that we see the characters as more or less driven to it by their respective circumstances. In the case of the movie "Damage" which starred Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche and concerned a man who had an affair with his son's fiance, the plot took pains to understand both characters were driven to it by an erotic obsession they couldn't control.
Damage
In the case of "Little Children," we have Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson playing two married people (but not to each other) with young children who embark on an affair. But that movie's plot showed how Winslet and Wilson's characters naturally drifted into their relationship because their marriages were dysfunctional. It made sense for them to get involved.
Little Children
"The Heart of Me" doesn't explain the affair. The leads barely exchange a few sentences and the next thing you know, they're having sex. The plot does establish that Bonham-Carter's character's sister was a bit cold, but that doesn't seem like a justification for stepping out on your wife with her sister. And there's no explanation for why Bonham-Carter's character chooses to betray her sister's trust and love by sleeping with her husband.
So I can't recommend this.
Movie Review: For Heaven's Sake
Summary: 2 Stars
All this drama and hype for a bunch of dysfuntional people who could be happy if only they'd make the right decisions.
There was absolutely no justification for Rickie to jump into bed with his wife's sister, or his wife's sister to cast off all familial fidelity for a fling for her sister's hubby. Didn't they know this would lead them into trouble?
I guess we're supposed to feel sorry for Rickie who basically is at the whim of his adolescent hormones, but to finally leave his mistress and then rape his wife (!) as though she's the cause of the whole thing? What an ape.
2 stars for good London sets.