Film

Heart (1997)

Director: Charles McDougall

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

A tawdry, laughable, blood-soaked melodrama. Businessman Eccleston is so stressed out by sexual jealousy that he has a heart attack, which, ironically, drives spouse Hardie, a TV producer, into the arms of maverick writer Ifans. Left in a wheelchair, Eccleston is given new hope by the possibility of a heart transplant, when a young man dies in a traffic accident and his mother, Reeves, gives permission for the organ donation. Big mistake. She becomes increasingly obsessed by Eccleston since he's now carrying her dead son's heart, and intent on protecting the same from the errant Hardie. One can sense major Jacobean mayhem coming a mile off. Screenwriter McGovern and the director obviously imagined that keeping every scene pared to the bone would build up a sense of foreboding, but the relentless cutting actually comes between the viewer and the staid characters. Worse is the treatment meted out to poor Hardie, if she's not naked or mouthing unspeakable dialogue, she's on the wrong end of a blunt instrument. Not since Midnight Express has a British film gloated over tender flesh and breaking bones with such prurient zeal.

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