HEAVY
A film review by Vince Deehan
Copyright 1996 Vince Deehan
Written and Directed by James Mangold. Cast: Pruitt Taylor Vince, Shelley Winters, Liv Tyler, Deborah Harry, Joe Grifasi and Evan Dando. Release Date: December 29th 1995 (UK)
HEAVY is the story of Victor ( Pruitt Taylor Vince ), a painfully shy and overweight chef and how his obsession with a beautiful young waitress, Callie ( Liv Tyler ), invades his life and ultimately changes it forever. The film is set in a quiet town in upstate New York, where Victor works at his mother's restaurant. Victor's mother, Dolly ( Shelley Winters ), hires Callie ostensibly to help out her other waitress Delores ( Deborah Harry ) but with the hidden intention of matchmaking her with her retiring son.
In the early hours of the morning, as Victor sits alone in a corner of the then deserted restaurant playing cards, Callie sidles up to him and starts to casually chat. Victor is clearly stuck for words yet he manages to communicate with her and they proceed to play a card game together. This is the start of Victor and Callie's touching friendship. Victor is clearly enamoured by Callie, but just as soon as such ideas start in his head, he is immediately disappointed when their card game is interrupted by the arrival of Callie's guitar-playing mechanic boyfriend ( Evan Dando ), who turns up to take her home. This will not be the last disappointment for Victor during the course of the film, and a far more tragic one is in store.
James Mangold's film shows the frustrations of people who, for various reasons, wish their lives were less routine and more exciting. Delores, the older waitress, clearly stuck in a rut ( as are virtually all the characters ), is in a dead-end job and unmarried in her forties. She has no shortage of men she can "take home", but no one special to stay with her and share her life. She resents Callie from the word go, and it's not hard to see why. Callie is young and beautiful and has her whole life in front of her, while Delores' own future is anything but rosy. Leo ( Joe Grifasi ) the resident barfly, spends every evening propping up the counter in the restaurant, drinking himself into a stupor, and clearly sees no future for himself either. He gets so drunk one night that Victor and Dolly take him home, where he sleeps the drink off on a camp-bed in Victor's room.
The whole film revolves around Victor and shows in great detail the life of a man who, crippled by a lack of self-confidence, is trapped in a monotonous life and cut off from the world around him. It is only the arrival of Callie and the genuine affection and warmth she shows to Victor that finally makes him realise that there is a world outside that he can be part of.
If this all sounds terribly depressing and dull, then you'd be surprised at how entertaining the film actually is. The main character Victor is not the sort of character you normally see leading a movie. Victor is a silent, giant of a man and not prone to snappy conversation. In fact, Victor speaks hardly at all in the film, and rarely more than half sentences at any one time. Yet Pruitt Taylor Vince's performance as Victor is so mesmerising that to take your eyes off him for one second would be to miss a subtle facial expression that illuminates Victor's soul and lets you see exactly what Victor is thinking and feeling.
Pruitt Taylor Vince gives a performance that would surely merit an Oscar nomination were the film to be released in the US, and I sincerely hope that this will happen. Liv Tyler also gives a very impressive performance as the young Callie, a difficult role which shows that she has alot of talent and Shelley Winters is a delight as Victor's mother.
The writer and director James Mangold has created a wonderful film which distinguishes him as a great, and promising talent . As a mark of his achievement, HEAVY was awarded the Special Jury Prize for Direction at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival.
Review written on Feb 17 1996 by Vince Deehan ( vince@deehan.demon.co.uk )
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