Into My Heart (1998)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Very Cool!!!

Fantastic!

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

It's not that I would mind a good movie about relationships. But to be good it has to tell me something about human nature that I haven't seen or thought about. Or tells it to me in a fashion that shows an interesting twist or point of view about the subject; be it love or illness or death or friendship or what have you that moves humans. But this movie just has nothing to say about any of this, except that it does happen. Nowhere are we given any reason as to why people act the way they do. The characters are portrayed over a pretty long period of their lives, which take some quite big turns. Not only are we not given their motives for the paths they take, but it also seems that the characters themselves don't really reflect on what happens. It just does and did. That's life. Oh well, let's move on to the next scene.

Before starting to write this review I saw that this movie got a pretty bad score (6/10 at the time) and I really don't understand why that is. Perhaps it's not the greatest movie of all times, but it sure deserves a lot better than the actual rating. But I guess I know why it isn't such a popular movie: there aren't any action scenes, no fast cars, no big explosions... only a couple of people in their late twenties, early thirties who try to deal with their lives and relationships...Two men who have been friends since childhood have grown up, doing everything together their entire lives. When they go to college, they meet a young woman who works at the local bar. One of them falls in love and starts a relationship with her, while the other one claims that she isn't his type. But it's clear that between the two their is some kind of chemistry and after several failed relationships and a bad marriage, the other one starts an affair with his best friends wife...As I already said earlier in this review: this isn't a movie for people who want to see a lot of car chases or other action scenes. This is a movie for people who enjoy movies with some good dialogs and some nice acting, people who are used to watch independent or foreign movies. I'm one of those people and I was pleasantly surprised by this one. That's why I give it a 7.5/10.

I'm not going to reveal the plot, but you can figure it out yourself after the first five minutes. This shouldn't stop you from seeing the movie, though, because you will still be on the edge of your seat rooting for the characters, whom you will come to know and be passionately involved with in the course of the movie. The acting is uniformly excellent and completely seamless; you get so involved with the character you feel you actually are there with them living their lives, and you forget that you are only watching them on the screen. The actors can't take all the credit, because the dialog is realistic to the point of being slightly uncomfortable to watch. I can't say whether it is the acting, the directing or the screenplay that deserves the credit here, but you could also say the same for American Beauty.I am writing this two days after having seen the movie and I still somehow feel that everything that happened in the movie also happened in my own life. Can you really expect any more from a movie?

I liked it a lot. Good relationship type film. Intelligently written and played. Would that all films were this simple and good.