(1999)
3
Buzz McClain
The creative team behind one of England's best TV cop shows, Cracker (the intensely engaging original with Robbie Coltrane and not the dodgy American version), makes the leap to the big screen with Heart. The results are mixed as director Charles McDougall and writer Jimmy McGovern seem at odds in telling an intriguing story. Or several intriguing stories: the sagas of Gary (Christopher Eccleston), a toxically jealous husband, and Maria (Saskia Reeves), a grieving mother who turns psychotic after her son's accidental death. Using a fractured method of storytelling -- jarring flashbacks, blistering crosscutting between sequences -- McDougall and McGovern maintain a sense of momentum that is determined to get us back to the beginning so we can see exactly whose blood Maria is covered in. It's grim going all the way -- particularly during a medically explicit heart transplant scene -- and whomever at the studio labeled this a black comedy has an odd sense of humor. There are no laughs in it, unless you think the soundtrack songs with the word "heart" in them are funny and not just bad taste. Heart challenges the viewer to gut it out, so to speak, for a big payoff; and the final ten minutes is reminiscent of something Sam Peckinpah might have done in his Straw Dogs phase. Actually, the last five seconds of the film, the very last line, changes everything and makes you question all that has come before. It's one of those things that make you go "hmm."
cast-crew for Heart on AllMovie
Heart (1999)
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