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'Heart of Me'

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Starring: Helena Bonham Carter, Olivia Williams, Paul Bettany, Luke Newberry, Eleanor Bron
Director: Thaddeus O'Sullivan
MPAA rating: R for some sexuality
Running time: 96 minutes
Release date: July 25
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Love and war, tastefully done

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By Stephen Holden
New York Times

Posted: July 23, 2003

All the high-toned accouterments that signify the "Masterpiece Theater" style of wistful Anglophilia embellish "The Heart of Me," an undercooked romantic drama set largely in London during the 1930's and 40's. If the elegant home furnishings, smart literary references, soft-focus cinematography and plodding semiclassical score (by Nicholas Hooper) evoke Merchant-Ivory, the end product suggests tepid, bottom-drawer Merchant-Ivory in which the emotions rarely catch fire.

The story, adapted from Rosamond Lehmann's 1953 novel, "The Echoing Grove," is a fable of betrayal and forgiveness in which high-strung, bohemian Dinah (Helena Bonham Carter) recklessly embarks on a long-term affair with Rickie (Paul Bettany), the husband of her proper sister, Madeleine (Olivia Williams). The theme of forgiveness is blared in an early scene in which the clandestine lovers, romping through the idyllic countryside, pore over a singsong verse by William Blake that invokes mutual forgiveness for "all eternity." Before the movie is over, the reiteration of that verse (the 1930's literary equivalent of "our song") has become an annoying tic.

Ms. Bonham Carter is on awfully familiar ground, playing another variation of the free-spirited romantic she embodied in "A Room With a View," "Howards End" and "The Wings of the Dove," all far richer movies. Her eyes snapping, her cheeks flushed, her tangled pre-Raphaelite mane signaling impulsiveness and abandon, Ms. Carter makes a convincingly brash firecracker. But here her character is more infuriating than likable.

It's unfortunate that the lover who ignites her fuse emerges as a milquetoast. Passion has to flow both ways in a love story, and Mr. Bettany is such a bland screen presence that he makes his American counterpart in looks, Eric Stoltz, appear as brazen as Vin Diesel. The most emotionally centered performance is Ms. Williams's Madeleine, a proud, unbending wife who puts up a brave front until she finally snaps.

A list of the story's ingredients might suggest that "The Heart of Me," is a red-blooded, modern epic of love and war. A torturous out-of-wedlock pregnancy; bitter, tearful confrontations between husband and wife and between feuding sisters; a scheming mother; and, ultimately, World War II itself, which claims two of the characters' lives, come into play. Yet the film has little narrative sweep. At the very end, when the moral of the story is stated one last time, the tone veers jarringly from solemn to lightheadedly saccharine.

A major problem with "The Heart of Me," directed by Thaddeus O'Sullivan from a screenplay by Lucinda Coxon, is the coy, confusing manner in which it leaps back and forth through time. A technique intended to deepen our awareness of the passing years backfires by calling greater attention to significant events that are never shown and only hastily alluded to in retrospect. As the movie seesaws between the 30's and 40's, it tries to build a froth of suspense by withholding crucial information on the exact fates of certain characters until the very end, but the effort feels strained and manipulative.

Is "The Heart of Me" tasteful? Yes. Is it compelling? No.

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