The Heart of Me (2004)

Very disappointing...

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

A movie full of dramatic irony and beauty. I love Helena Bonham Carter and Paul Bettany. On screen, the characters are so believable that I forget that I am watching a movie. I'm transported to this world of war and snobbery, kite flying and poetry. And every twist in the plot basically rips my heart out or sends it soaring. It's so different from any other romance film that I've ever seen. The premise is familiar, but it's beautifully done. Definitely worth seeing. Keep a box of tissues nearby. This movie made me want to read more William Blake. Watch it, and you'll see why. Seriously. It is a film that grips the heart, wraps up the senses, and causes emotions to boil. Despite the poetry in the film, it is mainly a movie of action, of eyes, beautiful, intense eyes. See this movie.

Why can't the private sector deliver sleepwalking junk-TV like this? Why does one of the few surviving public broadcasters on earth have to waste resources on such mediocre pap? The script should have been thrown out by BBC Drama execs on sight. It breaks all the rules. No hero, no heroine, no love interest, no sub-plot, no climax in the third act. It should have been binned right away. Only a director named "Thaddeus" could have been persuaded to take it on. Not one of the characters is even slightly plausible, and only their removal into some remote pre-war era gives them some spurious credibility. The working class --- er, that's 90 per cent of the UK population at the time --- is airbrushed out. Even the Second World War is reduced to the status of a prop and a 'deus ex machina'. Dinah and Madeleine obviously should have been swapped: Olivia Williams is irresistibly sexy even when playing a frigid wife, while the squat, pinch-faced Bonham-Carter has to plaster on the make-up to persuade her 40 years to look more like 30 (and definitely not 20). Paul Bettany struggles to make a manipulable goon and upper-middle class twit seem of consequence. His deeply unsympathetic behaviour and unmotivated, pathetic end (walking brainlessly into a Nazi bombing raid) plead for a well-deserved tearing up and binning. Rather than committing suicide, his character would have bought all the sex he wanted from the millions of sex-trade workers available in that era. Why throw up everything for a bisexual hippy? All three main characters seem to be desperately searching around for a sub-plot to give their lives meaning. Olivia Williams's agent should be shot.

I wonder of some of the other reviewers and I saw the same film. While this film had great visual beauty it was slow as molasses. That isn't always bad if one feels involved in what is going on on screen but that was not the case here. It seems that many reviewers blame Paul Bettany's character's weak will and Bonham Carter's character's lack of moral compass for their affair. I don't think this is the case. For one thing I have never known love to be something one can feel or not feel at will. For another, Olivia Williams' Madeleine seems to have lost her passion for her husband at least by the time the affair is revealed to the audience. Did anyone not notice her (literally) turning a cold shoulder when her husband comes to kiss her at her dressing table? Did anyone notice the challenge in Bettany's voice when, after the affair is discovered, he kisses Williams and tells her that this is what she has coming back to her revealing the lovelessness (at least physically speaking) that would likely have doomed their marriage regardless of outside influence?Carter does not, for me, possess the kind of fatal beauty that would make her character irresistible to a happily married man and I don't think the film intends for us to feel that way about her. Williams is much more classically beautiful and if the sister character (Carter) had been supposed to be a femme fatale then the roles of sister and wife would have been better switched. It was love that brought the husband and sister together not just a submission to passion by two morally weak characters. Yes, something can be said about the sister allowing herself to be in such a position. She might have decided that, love notwithstanding, the great wrong was not necessarily being with a married man but being unfaithful to her own sister. Still, it seems clear that the marriage was an empty one anyway with only the couples' love for their doomed son giving them much reason to continue the charade. Remember too, that their daughter was the product of angry assault and not the result of a resumption of regular marital relations.With all that juicy plot substance going for it I still think the film was a dismal failure. Very little exploration of Bettany and Carter's life together and despite the fact that the war plays a big part in Bettany's character's demise there was very little sense of the times for the part of the film that takes place before and during the war. I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone except hard core fans of the leads (and Eleanor Bron who was so great in "Help)and as a chance to see more of Olivia Williams who deserves better than the clunkers ("Born Romantic","The Postman","To Kill A King") she's appeared in. Of course, she has also done episodes of "Van der Valk" which I would love to see but which, it seems, will never come out on video or DVD.

Beyond the beautiful photography and brilliant performances in this fine film, it brings us an intimate view into one of this life's great challenges. Having almost stepped into Ricky's shoes myself, this story clears away the fog of imagined outcomes to reveal the most essential, critical and invariable costs with their likely and possible consequences.These three characters, the husband Ricky, the wife Madeleine, and the sister Dinah, live lives well examined, know well the agony and the ecstasy of true love, of loving without reservation, and that life is short and then we're gone forever. That true loves makes the gods jealous of our mortality.Perhaps there is a marriage of reason, and then an affair d'amour. But there's much more than that. Ricky loves Madeleine, and then he loves Dinah. Both are wonderful, brilliant women with whom any man could be truly content and more than that, in love. But this is their lives: this situation has much more depth than a simple love triangle, or a man lacking reason. It is the force of life, the river that runs through us when love flies. It's about choices, yes. But it's about one's life. Can Ricky choose to not love Dinah? Can he live the rest of his days not having known the outcome? How does one choose such a thing? How does one decide? That's why we need this story. To illuminate the road ahead. Is love with Dinah more than love with Madeleine? This is the question, perhaps in real life. And this story will help.The film steps through the traversal of events in quick succession, depending on our keen understanding to comprehend what may and may not possibly be happening to each character. On a much smaller note, in this writer's opinion this film contains one of the most beautiful images of any. A quick little profile shot of Helena Bonham Carter in profile, wearing some clown makeup. For the briefest moment, one may find one of film's finest flowers.