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Open Hearts
EMAILPRINTNewmarket Film Group
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 22 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 6 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Romance
Written by:
Susanne Bier
Anders Thomas Jensen
Directed by: Susanne Bier
Release Date:
Theatrical: February 21, 2003
Running Time: 113 minutes, Color
Origin: Denmark
Summary
RATING: R for language and sexuality
Starring Sonja Richter, Mads Mikkelsen, Paprika Steen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Stine Bjerregaard, Birthe Neumann, Niels Olsen, and Ulf Pilgaard
Adhering to the guidelines of the celebrated Dogme 95 manifesto, this film focuses on a young engaged couple in Copenhagen who finds their relationship changed forever when the man is hit by a car and paralyzed.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: After the Wedding Brothers Things We Lost in the Fire
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Danish 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...
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Although the plot might sound like the stuff of a soap opera, a smart script, strong performances and an ideologically determined lack of filmmaking niceties result in a shattering, deeply felt work.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Dogme 95 at its best: open-ended and exciting, with a grand sense of experimentation.
Read Full Review >Variety Gunnar Rehlin
Poignant, thoughtful and utterly absorbing, Susanne Bier's Dogme film Open Hearts is a gem.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
The Dogme pedigree rarely distracts; there is too much emotional investment to care much about dogmatic fidelity.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
While the characters lack the quirks and affectations that have enlivened the impulsive figures from past Dogme films, the passion of the players and Bier's sensitive direction give these utterly normal figures a vivid aliveness, along with dignity and everyday beauty.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Well-made film. Indeed, discovering such a small pleasure is the kind of experience that rewards film lovers who browse with open eyes as well as hearts.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
On paper this may sound like soap opera, but Bier and screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen (Mifune) have a good feel for character, and they're aided by a fine cast.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
A very good new Dogme by Danish director Susanne Bier, begins with several lives in excellent working order, and proceeds by way of domestic tragedy to a full-court emotional train wreck.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Michael Atkinson
However schematic, the movie percolates with immediacy and genuine warmth.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Rita Kempley
Like the director, the cast seems to have burrowed into the material, made all the more wrenchingly realistic by Dogme precepts.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Straightforward in form but surprisingly intricate.
Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
The gritty, low-budget realism approach of the Dogme manifesto gives immediacy and edge to the raw emotions Bier and her cast uncover. Best of all, Bier never forgets that a little humor can relieve an awful lot of pain.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
It is as emotionally raw and wrenching as life itself.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Bier knows what she's doing, and the performances are expert and affecting. But this meditation on love -- and love's bad timing -- is also improbably accommodating to its characters' respective longings.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder
An emotionally honest character piece that avoids moralizing or offering soggy excuses.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Open Hearts, like all good melodramas, is ruthless in its insistence that people are dragged, uncomprehending, in the wake of events.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Though the plot's soap-opera turns become tidy and predictable, the film shows remarkable attunement and sympathy toward a group of characters whose lives intersect and unravel on a cruel twist of fate.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Staff (Not credited)
In the film's most audacious break with the ultra-realism of the Dogme program, Bier inserts grainy visualizations of what Cecilie wishes for at a given moment -- a caress from the paralyzed Joachim, or a wave goodbye -- directly into the action.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
Until the end, when it begins to go soft, the movie takes two strands of soap opera convention -- a life-changing accident and an adulterous affair -- and spins their suds into gold.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Less Spartan than some films shot under the Dogma "vow of chastity" (there's actually a little music), but it's raw enough to complement the very real emotions on display.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle C.W. Nevius
And you thought Hamlet was a melancholy Dane. Compared with this gloomy group, he's Pee Wee Herman.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.8 (out of 10) based on 6 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
charlotte s. gave it a10:
Strong message... live can be full of tuff decissions.
I thought the movie had a real life feel about it....it was sad but easy to believe and that was is missing from some of the main stream romantic movies that are okay if you just want to get lost for a moment. The actors were great, and the script leaves a lump in my throat. I would love to obtain the sound track, I have been trying to locate the titles of the music tracks. Thanks, and would like to know where.
Chad S. gave it a 9:
"Open Hearts" is a melodrama that's never melodramatic. When you have capable actors, writers who can write, and solid direction; soap gets dirty, like life when it's suddenly, inexplicably turned upside-down. How the life-altering accident is staged, illustrates the phenoema of being at the wrong place at the wrong time(from both sides) better than any film in recent memory. The girl, written off by her bed-ridden fiance, rebounds a little too soon which prevents her from being wholly likable. This is a shrewd move because we don't just pity her, we hate her a little too. What pushes "Open Hearts" towards the cusp of greatness is the relationship between the nurse and the parapelegic. What prevents it from scaling the same heights as "Italian for Beginners" and "Dancer in the Dark", however, is the un-Dogma-like presence of pop music to drape the silence with unnecessary didacticism. To be audience friendly is not a Dogma tenet. But give Susanne Brier credit for capturing more than the usual amount of truth found in most films. "Open Hearts" makes for riveting viewing.
Ethan K. gave it a 9:
I saw this film in Denmark on it's first release, where it struck a chord with its audience immediately. It's a film that follows confused people who, like all of us, act for themselves before they think because it's just easier. The Danish title, which means Love You Forever, gets it right - it's about passions and chaos that drive us crazy until they're all that we have.
