PLAYING BY HEART
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: Here are six stories with people
talking about love intercut together. The stories
by writer/director Willard Carroll are about love
and death, candor and lies. PLAYING BY HEART is
also something of a puzzle film along the lines of
THE USUAL SUSPECTS. But mostly the film proves
that veteran actors like Gina Rowlands, Sean
Connery, and especially Ellen Burstyn can act rings
around their younger competition. Rating: 6 (0 to
10), +1 (-4 to +4)
"Talking about love is like dancing about architecture." That one line is probably the cleverest thing about PLAYING BY HEART and will probably be remembered as a trivia question long after the rest of the film is forgotten. (Actually the quote is a variation on the aphorism that talking about music is like dancing about architecture which has been variously attributed to Frank Zappa, Laurie Anderson, Thelonious Monk, and Steve Martin.) Yet, knowing the futility of talking about love, yet knowing that futility the film still attempts to tell a series of stories about love, all cut together.
In PLAYING BY HEART we have the story of Joan (Angelina Jolie) whose intended new lover Keenan (Ryan Phillippe) is totally uninterested in relating to another person. Gillian Anderson of THE Stewart) who would like to start a relationship with her. Gracie (Madeleine Stowe) and Roger (Anthony Edwards) have a great time together and are married, but not to each other. Mildred (Ellen Burstyn) and Mark (Jay Mohr) are mother and son talking one last time before Mark dies of AIDS. Hugh (Dennis Quaid) is looking to form a relationship with anybody, female or male, as long as he can build the relationship on a lie. Finally and perhaps best, there are Hannah (Gina Rowlands) and fatally ill Paul (Sean Connery) who after a long marriage want to reaffirm their vows, and just now Hannah has discovered that early in their marriage, Paul loved another woman. Six stories about six relationships, working and failing.
As he tells these stories Willard Carroll is doing something behind the curtain that the viewer comes to suspect early on, but is not actually confirmed until late in the film. By the time it becomes clear what the script has done, it is probably too late to pick up all the details, at least on the first viewing. Like THE USUAL SUSPECTS, one probably has to see the film twice to pick up on some of the subtleties.
Sean Connery's character Paul is dying yet even he does not have the vulnerability of Ellen Burstyn's Mildred who has to cope with the death of her son. It may be that having to deal with the death of a loved one is harder than dying oneself or it may be just that Burstyn is an actor who can reach from the screen and tear at a viewer's heartstrings. Paul Newman was approached for the part of Paul. In fact, he seems to fit the role better than Connery. It was probably written with Newman in mind. It may say something about acting styles, but ten hours after having seen this film one still cares about the Burstyn, Connery, and Rowlands characters. Speaking for myself I can picture the younger characters, but I do not really care a whole lot for what happens to them and their relationships. Burstyn can whimper more powerfully than Angelina Jolie can shout. Perhaps the problem is that there are too many characters to cover the material more than superficially. Carroll is satisfied to just give us a feel for the personality of the characters. The veteran actors know how to make the most of their time.
In 1998 Willard Carroll wrote and directed PLAYING BY HEART as well as TOM'S MIDNIGHT GARDEN. Before this year Carroll has not has not directed since his debut in 1990 with a somewhat under-appreciated horror film, THE RUNESTONE. If PLAYING BY HEART is no worse then THE RUNESTONE, it is really little more accomplished. I would give it a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale. Of some tangential interest is the fact that the MPAA in a bizarre ruling rejected the shooting title of this film DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE as being too similar to the current DANCING AT LUGHNASA. It is hard to imagine the two being confused.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 1999 Mark R. Leeper
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