Indie flix: An empty 'Heart'
By STEVE PERSALL
Published July 1, 2004
America's Heart and Soul (G) (84 min.) - The title is the closest filmmaker Louis Schwartzberg comes to establishing a theme in this disjointed yet picturesque collection of real people across the United States. It's like watching two dozen of those human interest stories sprinkled among bad news on TV, just to reassure us that everyone isn't violent, criminal or motivated by greed. Nice, but not enough to recommend it as a theater experience.
That Schwartzberg's film comes from Disney isn't surprising. The way the studio is unceremoniously dumping it into theaters is. On the heels of Disney's refusal to distribute Fahrenheit 9/11, this movie plays like Michael Eisner's apology to anyone offended by the fact that he ever dealt with Michael Moore. But the studio's low-key approach to America's Heart and Soul is so blatantly uncharacteristic that there's no sense of courage or conviction. Rather than backing a peacemaker, Disney shoves a pacifier in our mouths.
There's no narration, just one U.S. locale after another and thumbnail profiles of someone living there. Schwartzberg doesn't attempt to weave these stories together; they're trotted out one by one, then disappear. Only a few are genuinely inspirational: a blind mountain climber, a cerebral palsy patient rolling through the Boston Marathon in a wheelchair and Olympic boxer Michael Bennett overcoming seven years in prison for armed robbery.
Schwartzberg's short attention span prevents viewers from deeper impressions of such stories deserving them.
The suggestion we mostly get is that America is great because Roudy Roudebush can ride his horse into a Telluride, Colo., saloon, and Paul Stone's homemade cannon can fire bowling balls into junk cars. Regional and cultural diversity is summarized by salsa dancers, gospel singers and musicians playing traditional instruments. The inclusion of some segments is puzzling; ice cream mogul Ben Cohen is pointless next to an Appalachian rug weaver, a California grape grower and Texas oil well firefighters. The only overtly political statement is a fleeting sigh about West Virginia steel workers losing jobs to foreign labor.
Schwartzberg wants his film to be the kind of happy face American journal that isn't often produced. One look at this movie and - I'm guessing - the box office returns prove why. America's Heart and Soul has its heart in the right place but little soul; it's a coffee table book with barely moving pictures from sea to a not-so-shining Grade: C.
A twisted take on loveLove Me If You Dare (R) (90 min.) - Julien and Sophie are lifelong friends who, we learn early on, are destined to spend eternity together in an unusual place. Some would call itbeyond unusual, approaching cruel. But that has been the mark of their relationship, a curious bond that writer-director Yann Samuell explores so matter-of-factly that their mutual oddness seems credible.
Julien (played as a child by Thibault Verhaeghe) is a daydreamer and his most colorful fantasies are ignited by Sophie (Josephine Lebas-Joly), a classmate and mutual outsider. Together, however, they are pranksters who respond to school authority with crude remarks and cruder actions. They're covering up their separate bad family situations, which are marked by parental illness and indifference. Those circumstances lead to Sophie living in Julien's home where adolescent ardor is constantly repressed.
Julien and Sophie play dare games for kisses and secrets, never fully admitting that they're masking deep feelings. Samuell skips ahead 10 years - with Guillaume Canet and Marion Cotillard taking over the roles - and their quasiromantic pattern continues. Then he leaps ahead perhaps 10 more when easier-to-grasp affection for others pulls them apart. The tone of Samuell's film suggests they'll eventually fall into each others arms. The path won't be as sunny as some viewers may expect.
Love Me If You Dare is a comedy by definition and a tragedy by execution, becoming repetitive even with its slim running time. Yet the performances by the four actors playing Julien and Sophie, plus the occasional fanciful touches Samuell adds, make a suitably twisted date movie. It's revolutionary enough to contradict itself with a touching final fantasy, yet old-fashioned enough to build that climax around the musical chestnut La Vie en Rose. The film is immediately forgettable but for those 90 minutes watching the screen, it's a bitterly warm romance. Sort of.
Shown in French with English subtitles. Grade: B-
- S.P.