Haunted Heart movie review

MOVIE TITLE:    Haunted Heart

This romantic drama premieres in theaters September 27, 2024.

RATING: R

LENGTH:  2 hours 8 minutes

Movie Review Mom GRADE:  C-

IN A NUTSHELL:

The story is about a young woman who gets a job on a Greek island in a restaurant.  She falls in love with the restaurant’s owner and slowly learns confusing things about him as their relationship slides into a tale of survival.

The film was directed by Academy Award winner Fernando Trueba who also co-wrote the screenplay with Rylend Grant.

THINGS I LIKED:

• Fans of the teenage heartthrob, Matt Dillon, will be happy to see him in something again.    Can you believe he’s 60 years old now?
• I had never seen the Spanish actress Aida Folch in anything before.  She’s an award-winning actress in Spain, but I couldn’t stand her character in this movie.
• Other cast members include international actors Juan Pablo Urrego, Kika Georgiou, Yannis Agridopoulos, Marina Argyropoulou, and others.
• At the 1 hour 17-minute mark, we learn the intriguing origin of the title of the film.
• We get immersed in lovely Greek-island culture.  I had the great pleasure of finally touring Greece a few years ago and absolutely loved the food, landscapes, history, and people there.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:

• I was expecting something much better considering the talent of the director, but was very disappointed.
• Some of the acting is very stiff.
• In the first 15 minutes, the unpleasant, entitled leading lady shows up days late for a job interview and immediately starts insulting everyone at the restaurant, swearing in Spanish, and demanding a job at the location in Greece, even though she doesn’t speak a word of Greek.  Nice.  The boss shows her a tomato, which she instantly bites into and then criticizes the garden.  We’re supposed to be enamored with this protagonist?  Not long after, she starts hitting on her boss and throws herself at him.  Sheesh.  I was immediately turned off by her character’s personality.
• Juan Pablo Urrego plays a total douche.  He constantly flirts with another girl right in front of his girlfriend.  Then, he makes out with a bride at her wedding.
• A lowly part-time waitress gets an apartment with a gorgeous view of the ocean?
• The dialogue is painful like “What are you thinking?” or “That’s a story for another time.”
• Matt Dillon’s character is super vanilla.
• In real life, Matt Dillon and Aida Folch are 23 years apart.  I never believed their characters’ romance.
• There are some night scenes that are super dark, making it really hard to see what’s even going on.
• A married woman who is having an affair with another man cries to her friend saying, “There’s someone else.  What am I going to do?”  Oh brother.
• The film is way too long.
• The film has tonal shifts, starting with a slow-burn romance and then turning into a violent thriller.
• The musical score doesn’t work with the emotions we’re supposed to be feeling in certain scenes.
• We learn about Matt Dillon’s character in Act 3, but we never understand his motivations for why he did what he did many years prior.

TIPS FOR PARENTS:

• Some profanity in English and Spanish, including F-bombs
• Some Spanish is spoken without subtitles
• There’s talk of a man who people think might be gay.
• We see an unmarried couple in bed
• Talk of drug use
• Some bloody violence and deaths

THEMES:

• Fear
• Jealousy
• Trust
• Secrets
• Surviving the past

FUNNY LINES:

• None.  This is a serious drama.

INTERESTING LINES:

• “What do I have to do to get you to notice me?” – Alex     (Aida Folch)
• “Everything means nothing to me.” – Alex    (Aida Folch)
• “What’s out there?  What’s waiting for us?” – Max   (Matt Dillon)
• “What are you going to do to me?  Or I could start without you but I don’t think it would be as fun.” – Alex     (Aida Folch)
• “We both have our past.  We both came here, running from them.” – Max    (Matt Dillon)

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