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Heart of Me, The

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 24 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 2 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Romance
Written by:
Lucinda Coxon
Rosamond Lehmann (novel The Echoing Grove)
Directed by: Thaddeus O'Sullivan
Release Date:
Theatrical: June 13, 2003
DVD: February 10, 2004
Running Time: 96 minutes, Color
Origin: UK / Germany
Summary
RATING: R for some sexuality
Starring Helena Bonham Carter, Olivia Williams, Paul Bettany, Eleanor Bron, Luke Newberry, Gillian Hanna, Andrew Havill, and Shaughan Seymour
Upper crust England before, during and after WWII provides the backdrop for The Heart of Me, a richly emotional drama about the seductive -- and destructive -- nature of passion. (ThinkFilm)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Its intelligent characterizations make it one of the best movies I've seen this year.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The film is a soapy melodrama set from about 1936 to 1946 and done with style.
Read Full Review >Premiere Kelly Borgeson
Surely its a credit to this luminous cast that the characters can behave in such despicable ways yet still command ones sympathy.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
The film's power grows from its dark-toned portrayal of the World War II era and from its evocative use of flashbacks, which show more interest in the characters' emotional lives than in story devices like surprise and suspense.
Read Full Review >Variety Derek Elley
Solidly entertaining for those who like their dialogue crisp and with a main verb in every sentence.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Perhaps The Heart of Me's greatest success is the way it avoids turning any of its characters into villains. They all act badly at times, but we feel for them just the same; they never lose our sympathy. Weepy or not, that's an accomplishment any kind of film can feel proud of.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
In their own precisely posed ways, the drenched players in The Heart of Me are as compelling as those in any less decorum-bound love triangle.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
It has the feel of those romantic movies of the '40s that no one thinks are made anymore.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
The first half of The Heart of Me is just that sort of hoot. You know where it's all headed, and you can't wait for it to get there, as the cheap, cruel ironies pile up almost farcically.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Loren King
A handsome but lightweight period piece about passions indulged and repressed, and the calamitous outcomes that result from both courses.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Their dilemmas are the stuff of dozens of Masterpiece Theater productions, but they're brought to life with a vividness that defies changing mores and cuts to the heart of the ways people justify hurting each other in the name of love.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf
If you want to drift through emotional turmoil and a harrowing loss of security both personal and national, this project may provide some soggy satisfaction.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
There's heart but not much heat in this film version of "The Echoing Grove."
Read Full Review >Village Voice Jessica Winter
Madeleine's such a cold bitch that the adulterous lovers' anguished scruples scan like inert masochism.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer
Rote drama better suited for British television than theaters.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
A clean, tasteful drama (sex scenes aside) that's designed to attract Anglophiles who can't resist green lawns, falling leaves, precise diction, and a clean sound mix.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Steve Davis
Its all veddy stiff-upper-lip - this is romance from a masochists point of view - and the intimacy of the emotions often feels cramped.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan
By a certain point The Heart of Me becomes pointlessly depressing and unlikable without offering insight.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Scott Foundas
While director Thaddeus O'Sullivan has some interesting visual ideas -- his period London is a heavily aestheticized, matte-painted dreamscape -- he never makes an emotional connection to the material the way he did in his fine Irish gangland drama, Nothing Personal.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
O'Sullivan's movie could easily have been made 60 years ago. This is not intended as a compliment.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
The end product suggests tepid, bottom-drawer Merchant-Ivory in which the emotions rarely catch fire.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Terribly tragic, terribly romantic and, ultimately, terribly, terribly dull.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 4.5 (out of 10) based on 2 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
R. B. gave it a3:
Pretentious with ultimately unsympathetic characters.
Chad S. gave it a 6:
"The Heart of Me" didn't work for me because Madeline isn't the bitch, the emasculator, that Olivia Williams was supposed to be, which would merit Ricky's affair with Dinah. The affair is unromantic(which was thse film's intent, I think) because Dinah and Ricky come off as jerks for cheating on Madeline. You want to smack Bettany when a single tear rolls down his cheek while he's on the phone. You're supposed to care that he's trapped in a loveless marriage, and his true love is afraid of commitment. We don't. And it's never explained as to why Dinah is so hellbent on ruining her sister's life. Madeline doesn't hate her, but we do, so there must be something wrong with the character, or Helena Bonham's performance. What redeems "The Heart of Me" is a nice performance by Olivia Williams, and dark photography that's appropriate to time and place, and the genre of melodrama.
