DVD Review - Open Hearts
After seeing Suzanne Biers wonderful film After the Wedding I wanted to check out her earlier offering Open Hearts (I had already seen Brothers).
The story deals with fate and how you can make a choice that will change your life despite the cards that you were dealt. Cecile (Sonja Richter) and Joachim (Nicolaj Lie Kaas) are are happy couple living in Copenhagen who decide early on in the film to get married. One day Cecile is driving Joachim someplace. When he reaches his destination he gets out of the car but is immediately run over by another car. The woman who was driving, Marie (Paprika Steen) and her daughter Stine (Stine Bjerregaard) are very shaken.
Later on Joachim learns that he is paralyzed from the waist down and will never walk again. He urges Cecile to leave him but she doesn't want to. Day by day he becomes more embittered. In the meantime, Marie is so guilt ridden that she asks her husband Niels (Mads Mikkelsen), who is a doctor at the hospital, to console Cecile. Neils does console Cecile but one thing leads to another and you can guess where things go.
I thought that all of the acting was terrific. Biers is certainly a very good director and she wrote the intelligent screenplay with Anders Thomas Jensen. I like that fact that the film is not judgmental. The characters are vulnerable and circumstances lead them in a certain direction (which they might not have gone in if they weren't so vulnerable). And the ending is not tied up in a neat little package like so many Hollywood films are. I highly recommend that you rent this film on DVD.
A note: Open Hearts is supposed to be remade into a Hollywood film. I say that is a bad idea. Doesn't anyone have an original idea anymore?
The story deals with fate and how you can make a choice that will change your life despite the cards that you were dealt. Cecile (Sonja Richter) and Joachim (Nicolaj Lie Kaas) are are happy couple living in Copenhagen who decide early on in the film to get married. One day Cecile is driving Joachim someplace. When he reaches his destination he gets out of the car but is immediately run over by another car. The woman who was driving, Marie (Paprika Steen) and her daughter Stine (Stine Bjerregaard) are very shaken.
Later on Joachim learns that he is paralyzed from the waist down and will never walk again. He urges Cecile to leave him but she doesn't want to. Day by day he becomes more embittered. In the meantime, Marie is so guilt ridden that she asks her husband Niels (Mads Mikkelsen), who is a doctor at the hospital, to console Cecile. Neils does console Cecile but one thing leads to another and you can guess where things go.
I thought that all of the acting was terrific. Biers is certainly a very good director and she wrote the intelligent screenplay with Anders Thomas Jensen. I like that fact that the film is not judgmental. The characters are vulnerable and circumstances lead them in a certain direction (which they might not have gone in if they weren't so vulnerable). And the ending is not tied up in a neat little package like so many Hollywood films are. I highly recommend that you rent this film on DVD.
A note: Open Hearts is supposed to be remade into a Hollywood film. I say that is a bad idea. Doesn't anyone have an original idea anymore?
posted by Film Fanatic | 7:55 PM
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