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 REVIEW Soap Floats Sean Connery and Gena Rowlands anchor an ensemble BY BRIAN LIBBY 243-2122 EXT. 355 |
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Playing by Heart Rated R Opens Friday, Jan. 22 If there is such a thing as a good soap opera, Playing by Heart is it. Sure, soaps are essentially just corny serials churned out on a TV-network assembly line. But for all their cheesiness and clichés, over time these interwoven tales of love and loss can suck you in--just ask your grandma. Playing by Heart uses the soap formula but gets better results. Like Days of Our Lives or Melrose Place, it portrays men and women struggling to bring their romantic hopes to fruition, or simply working to keep those feelings afloat after years of routine. With an impressive ensemble cast and a mostly intelligent script from the virtually unknown writer-director Willard Carroll (The Runestone, a monster pic), Playing by Heart reaches a level of sophistication beyond the likes of Luke and Laura. At the center of the film are TV chef Hannah (Gena Rowlands) and her producer-husband Paul (Sean Connery). After Paul is diagnosed with a deadly brain tumor and Hannah discovers the truth about his affair 25 years before, they enter a candid, long-overdue discussion about their 40-year marriage. Hannah needs reassurance; Paul needs to get things off his chest. Two icons from opposite ends of '60s cinema (Rowlands was a cornerstone of husband John Cassavettes' groundbreaking films, and Connery was the original 007), these two movie veterans make a great pair. Rowlands is tough enough to hold her own against that thick Scottish brogue, and Connery isn't afraid to be tender and playful. Meanwhile a host of other stories continue to hopscotch on and off the screen. Antisocial theater director Meredith (Gillian Anderson) struggles to overcome the demons of past relationship fiascoes and proceed in a new romance with Trent (a surprisingly restrained and charming Jon Stewart). Meredith can't perform with the same panache in real life that her actors show on stage. Gillian Anderson is able to step out of her persona as X-Files agent Dana Scully while drawing from that character's similar romantic reluctance. The actress was smart to wait for the right movie role to come along. Over sodas in a series of hopping dance clubs, twentysomethings Joan (Angelina Jolie) and Keenan (Ryan Phillippe) play a game of hard-to-get with the tables turned. She talks nonstop, coming on hard and fast. He's guarded and quiet. Their thrift-store fashions are a little too perfect, and Jolie plays a Southern California flake a bit too well, but the pair eventually grows on the viewer with the help of a late plot twist. In Chicago a young man dying of AIDS (Jay Mohr) spends his final hours in a hospital room with his mother, Mildred (Ellen Burstyn). Together they enjoy a new-found candor forged by desperate times that will soon run out. And in the most original and humorous plot line, Hugh (Dennis Quaid) goes from bar to bar, telling a different life story at each counter. We find out Hugh is an improv student who pours out his feelings to anyone while he's in character. But he becomes emotionally paralyzed back in reality with wife Gracie (Madeleine Stowe). Unsatisfied, she in turn enjoys a sexual affair with Roger, played by Anthony Edwards (ER). Seen together, the rotating vignettes of Playing By Heart convey elementary but nonetheless unarguable truths about contemporary romance. Even in a world plagued by disease, sexual confusion and old-fashioned man-woman friction, you must seize the precious time you have. Telling the truth is, in Mildred's words, "oddly cleansing" after a lifetime of half-truths and deception. Despite all the potential pain, the chance for love is still worth the risk. Of course these are ancient proverbs we've all heard before. Playing
By Heart's stale message is definitely a strike against it. But
good performances and a script that makes up in sincerity what it lacks
in cleverness go a long way. The film doesn't have the complex brilliance
of Robert Altman's comparable Short Cuts, another ensemble piece
about contemporary Los Angeles, but Carroll has conceived a charming
picture with an enthusiastic look at the oldest game there is.
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