Heaven (1999)

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Did you people see the same film I saw?

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

For any number of films which are celebrated for being different, for offering some facet of innovation into increasingly familiar patterns of cinematic experience, there will always remain those films, like Scott Reynolds' Heaven, which slip through the cracks of cultural knowledge. With an infamous back history of being bought and released almost straight to DVD by the Weinstein Company to not confuse prospective viewers regarding their more 'accessible' release, director Tom Tykwer's Heaven starring Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi (which was subsequently released in 2002), Reynolds' Heaven quickly drifted into obscurity. Yet, upon viewing, this becomes all the more tragic, as Reynolds' film proves an ingenious hidden gem of a film which toys with and subverts viewer expectations as craftily as it constructs its own, viscerally unique experience. While the storyline premise, out of context, could not sound more incongruous. The provided television summary reads: " A gambling addict contests custody of his son with his estranged wife, little knowing that she and his psychologist are having an affair " - which, while it is a subplot of the film, says nothing of the film's more profoundly bizarre and unique characteristics, such as its clairvoyant transvestite stripper protagonist, to mention only one. The inter-splicing of fantasy within a brutal neo-noir environment admittably requires suspension of disbelief, but Reynolds barely gives his viewers a chance to reflect on the 'unbelievable' plot device, whipping his film along at such a frenzied pace that the audience remains riveted simply in an effort to keep up. But Reynolds' cinematic manipulation hardly stops with the film's pace, as he equally toys with and subverts spatial- temporal relations, inter-cutting conversations held in identical locations over different times, leaving the viewer continually forced to question what is actually happening when, and who is saying what to who. While such a unique cinematic trope could simply result in a chaotic mess (and is inevitable to distance many viewers) Reynolds masterfully keeps his film together, miraculously tying together any extraneous plot holes and drawing the viewer into a claustrophobic yet fascinating and enthralling convoluted narrative. Finally, when the film's unconventional tension rises to near insurmountable levels, Reynolds again pulls the proverbial rug out from under the viewer with an alternatively gruesome and triumphant ending which embraces the sort of Hollywood conventions the film had vehemently resisted up until that point. Yet instead of such an ending feeling like a creative cop-out, it instead feels cathartically necessary, finally giving the viewer a necessary emotional release, while simultaneously feeling subtly ironic throughout, as if chuckling at its own willful fulfilling of viewer expectations. A remarkable cinematic tour-de-force for director Reynolds, it is both frustrating and tragic that such a talented filmmaker remains so unappreciated by the industry. Yet the film's strengths go beyond its bizarre premise and manipulation of time and narrative. The film's equally strange setting is equally likely to leave viewers scratching their heads, with a mix of American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and South African (among others) accents, currencies and otherwise cultural presences, begging the question as to whether the film is even meant to take place within a contemporary 'realistic' context, or some not too distant future where cultures intermingle and clairvoyant transvestite strippers somehow do not seem out of place. However, the film's innately strange setting perfectly compliments the grim absurdity of its neo-noir trappings, a gritty world of shadows and filth which manages to achieve being both aesthetically fantastic and frighteningly real simultaneously. Victoria Kelly's equally incongruous musical score fits right into the tone of strange, but only a shade away from normal, perfectly accentuating the escalating tension and mystery. Reynolds' assembly of a cast of superbly talented character actors brings his collection of colourful characters to vivid, memorable life. Martin Donovan gives an unshowy and sturdy performance as the gambling addict architect protagonist, forced to resort to designing strip clubs to garner money to pay for legal bills to fight for custody of his son. Donovan carries the perfect mix of conventional and quirky, making him the ideal leading man for a film which exemplifies such a hybrid, and his grounded charisma binds the outlandish facets of the film together as a sturdy emotional center. Similarly, Danny Edwards is luminous as aforementioned clairvoyant transvestite stripper Heaven, managing to make an innately strange character both entirely credible and achingly sympathetic, giving an emotionally resonant, lingering and genuinely human performance. The tragically underrated Richard Schiff is phenomenal as a crooked strip club owner, coming across as perversely charming even at his most despicable, and Joanna Going delivers a measured, powerful performance as Donovan's flawed yet morally struggling ex-wife, thankfully refusing to turn her character into a villain. In contrast, Patrick Malahide has tremendous fun chewing the scenery and embracing gruesomely malicious psychiatrist Melrose - when Heaven scathingly declares Melrose to be the devil, it hardly feels an overstatement, so memorably yet fittingly grotesque is Malahide. Finally, Karl Urban delivers the sort of role which, had the film enjoyed popularity, would have made him a superstar overnight as the mysterious bouncer known only as "The Sweeper", with Urban making astoundingly powerful use of his tragically but necessarily few scenes. To say more regarding the plot would ruin the wonderful guessing game of the film, but suffice to say that such a fundamentally unique and masterfully thrilling cinematic experience deserves to be seen by all willing to commit to its brutal violence and confounding manipulation of narrative. Despite being virtually culturally unknown and its incongruous premise, Heaven delivers near peerless thrills of the sort literally almost never seen in the mainstream, making it easily worth searching out. Those who come across it are unlikely to be disappointed. -9/10

Scott Reynolds may not exactly be well known; but his excellent 2001 thriller When Strangers Appear really took me by surprise, and while Heaven is not as accomplished as the aforementioned film, it's still a very good thriller that takes in multiple different elements, which are somehow combined into a mostly coherent whole. Like many post-Pulp Fiction crime thrillers, this one features a fragmented plot which is told through various flashbacks. The main character is Robert Marling; a man with a gambling addiction. He is recovering from a nasty split with his wife Jennifer, who also wants custody of their son. Robert is friends with Stanner; the proprietor of a strip club and employer of transvestite dancer Heaven. Heaven has an unusual ability to see into the future and takes a shine to Robert when she recognises him from one of her premonitions. The plot thickens when it emerges that the psychologist treating Robert is having an affair with his wife and also treating Heaven...Most of the film is kept within the realms of possibly; the only exception to this being the mystical abilities of the title character, which comes off as being a little strange despite being integral to the plot. Initially, I had the film pegged as a rip-off of The Crying Game; but actually it doesn't make a meal of its gender-bending lead character at all. The plot does flow surprisingly well considering that it is put forward in a fragmented manner; the strong screenplay manages to put everything across in such a way that it all makes sense. There's no shortage of memorable characters, with strip club owner Stanner standing out most in that respect. The strip club itself is very well done and the director ensures that it has a fantastically sleazy atmosphere; it's just a shame that it isn't featured more! The ending is suitably strange and ambiguous; therefore suiting the film well. All in all, this is not quite a brilliant thriller; but it's well made and gripping for the duration and therefore I recommend it.

I almost didn't stay with this. "Heaven" is constantly shifting focus between the future and the present. And I'm not one to watch out of the norm sexual actors (in this case there's a transvestite). But I hung in and was engrossed in the movie. There are a lot of twists and turns which are very well handled. As a result, at various points, what you think is or has happened, may not have. I doubt anyone can guess the ending ahead of time. It's not what you expect. For what "Heaven" was trying to achieve, it did so in Aces. And I applaud the actors and director for that. It took a lot of vision to make sense of this and pull it off in the end.

This a quite respectable and honest in it's intentions movie. The screenplay isn't very intriguing but it's improved by the inconsistency of many scenes and the weird characters to make a good result.The acting was nice especially from Martin Donovan and the guy who played the shrink but i thought that his character and it's motives weren't explained enough.The music suits perfectly with the mood of the movie and fits with the action.In some moments of the film i was drawn in it's universe but in others i was bored and thought that it could need a faster montage.Finally i must say that i liked the corridor with the bulbs and that this film would be a nice choice the next time you go to the video club.