Open Hearts (2002)

Wonderfully offbeat film!

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

I have never been a fan of Dogme style film making. To me it means jittery frames due to the use of hand-held cameras, little background music, and often grainy images. But 'Open Hearts' is one big exception.The story is about forbidden love. There are plenty of miserable people in this film and yet there are no 'bad' people here. Mads Mikkelsen delivered one of his strongest performance by portraying the tormented lover. He was a good man - a practising doctor, a caring father and husband to his children and wife. Yet he fell in love, madly and beyond his control, with a younger woman who was traumatized by a recent accident. I can totally relate to his agony and sentiment - not being able to remove her from his mind every single waking minute, while fully knowing his obligation to his family.The film concludes without offering a feel-good ending, as life often does. I was left to think about it, and to muse over the dilemma faced by the characters. It made me think for a long time.I strongly recommend this film to anyone who enjoys European cinema. And if you are a romantic, you should not miss it.

This is the second Susanne Bier film I've watched and I found it to be completely absorbing. It probably didn't need to be a movie and would have been quite suitable as a TV film. As a Dogme movie it mostly worked well though occasionally I thought it used gimmicks, which I thought were perhaps not Dogme in nature. Specifically there was the use of what looked like thermal imaging segments at the beginning and end of the film and I've no idea why. There was also a section near the beginning where characters dialogue was clipped before they had finished speaking and again I didn't know why.What carries the film is the acting and characterisation and, apart from the odd weird choices already mentioned, the Dogme style of filming serves the story very well, drawing you in as a viewer and not distracting you with flashy directorial flourishes. I read someone complaining that it didn't make sense to dispense with the language of film that has been built up over years and years but this stripped back approach makes perfect sense to me for the right story.It isn't perfect but it's much better than the average mainstream film. I thought the ending was a little weak. It seemed right to leave the resolution ambiguous but, for me, it wasn't quite ambiguous enough. I also thought Niels' wife was much more attractive than the Caecilie character he falls in love with but that's probably just me!

1. If your ex-lover turns up drunk at your door in Denmark he is going to cry rather than beat the hell out of you - EXCELLENT. 2. You can leave your car unlocked at the scene of an accident in Copenhagen and it and the contents will still be there in good working order several weeks later - Excellent. 3. Medical care in Denmark is to a very high standard - EXCELLENT. 4. There is a lot of mackeral served at hospital staff canteens - OKAAAY. 5. It is still pitch dark at breakfast time - NOT EXCELLENT. Now that I've got the cultural differences out of the way this is one of those perfect little films which are an object lesson in acting from every member of the cast, to say nothing of a subtle script and sensitive direction of course. When you have diamonds (Mads Mikkelsen)you don't surround them with zircons and so every performance is strong - particularly the actress playing the wife who is a perfect foil for the nuanced performance of Mikkelsen. Note - woman director, another cultural point in its favour.

My second film from Ms Bier...and another impressive outing. I can see why she'll soon be working with Benicio Del Toro and Halle Berry. She seems to be drawn to awkward love stories, like daisies growing in concrete. Having a hard time avoiding spoilers, so if you've not seen this film, but appreciate the other films I've reviewed, I'd strongly recommend seeing this and we can discuss reviews afterward.SPOILERS...So for those who have seen this film, and perhaps also Brodre, it seems Ms. Bier has some consistency between them.1) a teenage girl helps to jeopardize a relationship (rightly or wrongly?)2) she has an aversion to tidy endings3) she gets excellent work out of Nikolaj Lie KaasAnd again, singlehandedly she seems to pioneer awkward love, something that happens in real life much more often than in reel life. Hmmm, "awkward love" has a clunky sound to it...maybe it would be better to refer to these as star-cursed love stories.Kaas is so good early on, even in his sweetness there is a little edge that portends the larger edge that erupts. It is interesting that both the male leads in this spurn women who love them, when arguably those men need the women the most. Very heart-stirring for me. Kaas as the paraplegic (and as a powerful actor) could have drawn the film about him, and it could have triggered a wrong focus on the issues of his damaged body and psyche.Thus his pushing away of Cecilia I think is importantly indeterminate. You could read it as his love for her, or his brutally frank assessment of his situation, or having listened to hard to pragmatic nurses and doctors, or as him seeing his condition as sort of life-ending. No one knows really, and again while that is a difficult and interesting angle, it is not at the heart of this film.With "Brodre" the tension was amplified, huge emotions swirled around that center of awkward love...war, death, spousal abuse. Here the "bomb" that is dropped is foreshadowed excellently by concerns about an upcoming mountain climbing trip, the car accident is a sudden, swift and oddly almost poetic piece of violence. So much so that every time someone set forth towards the streets afterward, I felt my heart lurch in my throat. Proof that I've seen too many movies, and was sensing an almost superstitious fear of parallel plotting. I'd be curious if others felt this, or if Biers intended this...I was often nervous through this film, albeit less so in Brodre where the soundtrack was needed as an anti-anxiety tablet. Here the nervousness often came from just the feeling that people were drifting from themselves. And yet each faux pas rang true. Mid-life crises aren't clichés...and I think they are the elephants many people try not to think of.Sonja Richter was scintillating as Cecilia, she didn't need soft focus to shed ten years off her actual age. As she wades through the aftermath of the emotional accident following the physical accident, she gathers more grace in dealing with both the men, as well as the "other" woman and the aforementioned teenager. I wish we had been privy to more of the latter interaction...but I understand why we could not be, it would have deflated the tension in the scene with Niels and Marie.And how about the alternate reality/dream sequences...almost toying with what the audience would like as much as what the individual characters might be wishing for. Capturing those moments when for some reason, we can't seem to find the true thing to do...and not necessarily because we are physically unable to do so! I wasn't sure I liked them as they occurred, but in hindsight they resonate.The translated title appears to be an odd one, maybe open hearts means open for love and for hurt? Or maybe, as we see with Brodre, Bier has a true love for open endings. Another excellent film that left me painfully curious at the conclusion to know more about the characters.Thurston Hunger 8/10