Good Heart, The

This strange bit of cynically off-kilter melancholia from director/writer Dagur Kári is the exact sort of film that simply befuddles American movie audiences (and by the reviews - many of the critics as well); an exercise in allegorical drama that leaves the dimmer rubes empty, confused and hungry for the canned vittles that constitute their cinematic diet.

Why oh why can't American audiences handle the curveball?

The decidedly European ethos behind The Good Heart, a mentor/protégé fable with its body in rot and disrepair but its mind in the rarified ether, does not translate well to the sensibilities of people who prefer action to talking, incuriousness to inspection, gaiety to darkness, and an unbending belief that, for their money, they better be left with an ending unburdened by surprises, replete with closure and never demanding an explanation. The odd thing is, with The Good Heart, they sort of get it.

The principle actors (Brian Cox and Paul Dano) have been reunited from the excellent (and disturbing) L.I.E., a 2001 little ditty about a pedophile with a heart of gold. Their relationship in Good Heart has some of the same strains as their previous arrangement but Cox's character is a more benevolent Svengali here - a crusty, dying bar owner who is looking for a grantee to continue the legacy of his seedy establishment. This desire is puzzling in that Cox does not seem to care very much about actual saloon keeping at all. He does not allow walk-in customers, bans women and treats even the regulars as unwanted intruders to his boozy domain. He has some very interesting concepts about customer service and the proper role of the bartender. He loves the idea of bars. He just dislikes the nuisance of the denizens. To wit, as Cox waxes philosophically on drinking establishments:

"A bar should not change its name. No matter what goes wrong in the world. Come hell or high water, when the smog dissolves, you've got to trust that your bar is still going to be there."

And on the drinkers:

"We're not here to save people. We're here to destroy them."

The beneficiary of Cox's curious goodwill comes in the form of Dano, a suicidal, homeless youth with naively good intentions and an overwhelming sense of worthlessness. The two slowly form a symbiotic bond, the purpose of which is puzzling, but the warmth of which is undeniable. You just never quite figure out what these two disenfranchised freaks are doing with one another. But you never question it either.

For it is what Good Heart doesn't do which makes it a good film. It is emotionally moving in places, sentimental in others, abstruse in spots, coy, depressing, odd, futile, exasperating, funny and just downright different from most anything you've ever seen. There are trite bits - an ending you can see approaching like two proselytizing, apple-cheeked, well-dressed Mormons on bicycles when you're stuck at a bus stop with grocery bags - but the inevitability of it all seems appropriate here. The obviousness takes new form because you don't expect the obvious from this film. It's been bouncing around your preconceptions and fucking with your mind and patience for so long, you thank it for the small moment of clarity. Because that is when this devilishly weird flick comes into total focus and you simply whisper, "Wow, what a fascinating little movie."

Then you sob a little at your cinematic loneliness and the down time in between movies like this and whisper, "Jesus, America needs to smarten the fuck up."  

Comments

[jjmitch21]

Loved it!