Lawless Heart (2002)

Best movie ever!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Blistering performances.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

In the funeral of Stuart, his sister Judy (Ellie Haddington) defends to her husband Dan (Bill Nighy) that his money should be delivered to his mate, the gay restaurateur Nick (Tom Hollander) since there is no will but that should be the wish if his brother-in-law. The faithful Dan meets the Frenchwoman Corrine (Clémentine Célarié) and he has the feeling that part of his life was lost. Meanwhile the grieving Nick hosts Stuart's best friend, the former hippie Tim (Douglas Henshall) at home. Tim has a crush on the worker of a fashion store Leah (Josephine Butler), who is heartbroken and healing from her last love affair, and he decides to give a party for her at Nick's place. After the party, Dan never meets Corrine in respect to his wife and but the drunken Michelle (Sally Hurst) gives a BJ on him; Nick befriends Charlie (Sukie Smith) that falls in love for him; and Tim finds that Leah's secret love is his stepbrother David (Stuart Laing).After a complicated beginning due to the great number of characters, "Lawless Heart" becomes interesting with the entwined lives of several lead characters and the same story is retold centered in Dan, Nick and Tim and filling the blanks. The less interesting segment is the ironical situation of Dan, where the British dark humor prevails in a questionable sense of fidelity. In the end, the screenplay with open end works reasonably well developing the realistic characters and situations and the result is a good low-budget movie supported by great performances. My vote is six.Titile (Brazil): "Coração Sem Lei" ("Lawless Heart")

And an insult to its purported subject, which seems to have been grieving over the accidental death of a gay man. No one (with one exception, in two brief moments) seems to really be concerned that a man has just died. Everyone's going to the National Front disco, screwing (exclusively heterosexually, I might add), and having cheery old smash-the-vase house parties.And whoever told these guys that it would be a bright idea to mimic a Tarantino script structuring for this particular plot was quite off. Really, quite off.Even the least qualified Tarantino imitator would have made better use of music, incidentally.

After the death by drowning of a small time homosexual restaurateur by the name of Stuart (David Coffey), three sets of lives are changed and altered: not only by the death itself, but by each others reactions and counter-reactions to the tragedy.Anyone who has put on their "reading glasses" and watched any worthwhile number of European cinema will have been confronted by films about "small people" who lives seem petty and insignificant in the telling (or even in the retelling to others): but reflect more about you and your life than the complete cannon of Bruce Willis. This is another example.Lawless Heart (an over-the-top and misleading title) takes on a very simple story of loss, passing and the small amount of attached inheritance money. Nevertheless, it has to be borne in mind that the cash would mean a lot to the people who would receive it. There is also the vexed question of "natural justice." Something I don't want to flesh-out further in this review. Maybe to try and distance itself from quality television, the film uses separate point-of-view flashbacks and although it might sound complicated and tricky in-the-telling, it is not too difficult a concept in-the-watching.(Once you catch on to the technique that is. It left me a little confused for a while.)While I enjoyed this film enormously, I must start with a string of petty irritations and focus bringers. The first being that there is really nothing new on the menu (no restaurant pun intended), the French have been doing this type of thing for years without the rest of the world really noticing.(Those that enjoyed this film and want "more of the same" might like to start with the 1983 "Pauline à la plage." Not the same story - far from it - but the same basic approach and small home truths.)Equally a list of well known emotion wranglers have been blended in to try and soft soap the potential audience: The use of emotive music (Adrian Johnston), 8 mm home movies and time-lapse photography has all been done before; although this film shows some imagination even in borrowing!The movie deals with a homosexual relationship in a welcome manner. It is no more abnormal than anyone else's relationship, although that doesn't mean that everyone approves or wishes things weren't different.Equally it never presents anything as the-end-of-the-world. People may - or may not - come in to the small amount of money we have already mentioned, but we are sure they will all survive whichever way the cookie crumbles.Small town life is well captured, although with any ensemble piece you have your favourites. It doesn't really present women in any great light with the dorkish Charlie (Sukie Smith) providing some comic relief as the slightly out-of-it party girl who cannot - after a hard days night - even remember where she lives!Thankfully no one is that smooth an operator and the various "rejecting women" probably have a certain amount of good taste. Layabout Tim (Douglas Henshall) is actually fascinating as we take an instant dislike to him and his leeching ways, but we slowly warm to him as the picture goes on - even if he shows no appetite for having a regular job or living anything other than a self-centred life.Trust me I am not a sucker for sentimentality or bland emoting. Someone crying or in grief doesn't prompt me - automatically - to feel the same way, and there are plenty of characters here that could do with a good shake if not a soft kick up the backside.In most ways Lawless Heart is a "soft sell" movie: It doesn't want to sell you anything unless you want to be a buyer of it: People live, people die, people fall in love, people fall out of love, people are mismatched in love. Occasionally people even come to terms with the limits of others.Good work all round from the actors, producers and musicians. Without a fortune to spend I was quietly moved, even though I was trying hard not to be.

`Lawless Heart' is certainly a British made film. And, like a lot of British films, the pace is a bit slow. In fact, the pace is very slow, so, for those of us who like an action packed, on the edge of the seat, movie, this is somewhat difficult to get through.But, the movie is worth the effort. Unlike those adventure movies which take us to imaginary, impossible places, `Lawless Heart' is a film about real people in real situations told in an eloquent way.The story is that of the inter-personal relationships between a small group of friends and family, in a community, brought together for the funeral of one of their own. As the tales of the three main characters, Dan, the in midlife crisis family man, Tim, the long lost young rebel and Nick, the gay man trying to cope with the loss of his partner, unfold, it's possible for anyone watching to relate to one's own life at least one aspect of the multi-faceted storyline. This along with some respectable performances by the cast makes the film worth a look.So, on a rainy Sunday afternoon, when you have nothing else to do, this might be a film to watch.