Christian Critic's Movie Parables - http://www.christiancritic.com
RANDOM HEARTS * * out of * * * * ==================
DIRECTED BY: Sydney Pollack STARRING: Harrison Ford, Kristin Scott Thomas, Charles Dutton, Sydney Pollack WRITTEN BY: Darryl Ponicsan, Kurt Luedtke RATED: R for brief violence, sexuality, and language SCRIPTURE REFERENCES: Philippians 3:13, Job 42:10, John 16:20-22
Mankind does have a proclivity for complicating life. Such complications are never more evident than in affairs of the heart. The new film, RANDOM HEARTS, tells the "romantic" story of four people. The twist is that two of the four are dead. That rules out any possibility for this being a romantic comedy. Call it a romantic tragedy instead.
Harrison Ford (SIX DAYS, SEVEN NIGHTS) stars as Dutch Van Der Broeck, a DC police sergeant working in the Internal Affairs Division. His happy marriage is about to be exposed for the facade that it is when a plane crashes into the Chesapeake Bay on its way to Miami, FL. One of the accident casualties, traveling under an assumed name, is his wife who just happened to be accompanying another woman's husband.
The other woman is none other than US Congresswoman Kay Chandler, played by Kristin Scott Thomas (THE HORSE WHISPERER) who is surprised and embarrassed at her husband's deception, but willing to put it behind her and move on with her life. Dutch is not as willing to let it go.
Obsessed with finding out about the details of the affair so as to understand why it happened, Dutch begins digging for information, something that the congresswoman, in the middle of her reelection battle, can ill afford. So, in order to try and control the potential media damage, Kay meets with Dutch and they try to make sense of their shared situation. With bruised egos and hurt hearts, they visit the site of the clandestine trysts of their recently deceased spouses and, in so doing, they become attracted to each other.
At the same time, their lives continue but are not unaffected by the grief and frustration they are feeling. Van Der Broeck risks his career and life pursuing and baiting a suspect when he has no hard evidence against him. Chandler, touched by the level of brutal honesty upon which Van Der Broeck insists, finds that she may no longer have the stomach to mount an effective political campaign where truth is often a liability.
Harrison Ford can play the no-nonsense cop roles with aplomb and does so with some level of effectiveness here. But with spiked or tousled hair and pierced ear jewelry, it appears that Mr. Ford is attempting a more youthful appearance. To this reviewer's eye, it is having the opposite effect. I did not believe him as a romantic lead in this picture.
Kirstin Scott Thomas, on the other hand, was fully believable. Demonstrating the class of a woman of means and power, yet still managing to show the frailty and vulnerability of a woman in love, Ms. Thomas is captivating on screen.
Sydney Pollack (TOOTSIE), as director, is at the helm of RANDOM HEARTS, keeping the movie at its steady but interminably slow pace. The nearly two and one-quarter hour length of the movie works against the picture. The longer it runs, the more illogical and weak Mr. Ford's character appears. His inability to let go of the pain that his wife's infidelity brought to him threatens the promise of beginning a new relationship with Kay.
Living in the past can be a trap in and of itself. We may learn from the past and we may hope for the future. But to be effective as sons and daughters of God, we must live in the present.
"Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before." Philippians 3:13 [KJV]
Certainly grief is something that we must all handle and we understand that there is an appropriate amount of time needed to gain full control of one's thoughts and emotions when dealing with a loss of a loved one.
But staying in a perpetual state of mourning, anger or resentment is damaging and dangerous as it could easily lead to spirits of depression or melancholy. Such continual states of being are very selfish as one's full attention and energy of thought is directed inward. It should be remembered that Job's deliverance and restoration did not occur until after he prayed... not for himself, but for his friends.
Michael Elliott October, 1999 http://www.christiancritic.com
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