Paixões Paralelas

An interesting argument in a very slow film, which seems to be more French than an American made one. You must see carefully the first scenes to follow the proposed plot. If you do not that you will be certainly lost by mid of the film. Even though you will be in doubt regarding the real personality of Marie/Martha Marie 'Marty' Talmadge (Demi Moore). Whom she really loved? it was a mystery.

In Alain Berliner's (Ma Vie en Rose) new film PASSION OF MIND Demi Moore (G.I. Jane) is torn between reality and a dream. When we first meet her she is Marie a mother of two daughters living in the French country side and reviewing books for a stateside paper. She lives as a recluse, pretty much, except for a friend (Sinead Cusack) who helps her deal with personal problems, including the death of her husband. We assume that Marie has some deep emotional problems but it isn't until she goes to sleep that we find out just how deep those problems are. You see, when Marie goes to sleep she dreams she is Marty, a New York literary agent. Marty is single and very independent. She has no children and is very passionate about her work. Marty has no time for relationships and keeps everyone at a safe distance emotionally. But, you can see in her face that she to has a secret. Yes, that's right when Marty goes to sleep at night she dreams she is Marie. Both Marie and Marty are fully aware of the other but neither knows which is dream and which is reality.

It is here that the story starts to get interesting. Marie meets William (Stellan Skarsgard,) an author whose book Marie panned. William, almost stalking, shows up one day and befriends one of Maries daughters and eventually works his way into Maries heart. Meanwhile, Marty encounters Aaron (William Fichtner,) an accountant doing business with her firm, who has an immediate attraction to her. And, just like Marie, Marty begins to have feelings for Aaron.

Marie and Marty begin to realize they are in love. But, which one is real? In both lives there are therapists trying to help solve this very problem. Both Marie and Marty can feel each other's love. We, as the viewer, feel it too! Neither woman allows their respective men to get too close, believing something bad may happen if either of them are awakened in the middle of the night. Both women realize that their relationships cannot last like this. They must figure out which is reality and which is dream. If they make the wrong decision all could be lost. We try to decide, as well, which is real and which is dream. It's not until we start to unlock the past that we find out if we have made the right decision.

The writers (Ron Bass and David Field,) do a great job using the dream world to show how some people deal with traumatic events in their past by suppressing them into their subconscious. Everyone and everything in the dream life represents something significant in the real life past. The cinematography is also wonderful. Eduardo Serra (What Dreams May Come, The Wings of The Dove) shoots the French scenery marvelously making it seem very tranquil, while giving Manhattan a dark, cold and very overwhelming feeling. The director, Berliner, then takes this material and crafts it into a tale of duality, where one woman locks her feelings deep in her own mind and takes them out only in the privacy of her dreams.

Slightly bland love story with psychopatological elements where a woman lives two different lives in different countries (France and New York,US) but is unable to distinguish which one is real and which is just a dream. The movie has high production values but could have gone much further on its premise. An ultra romantic soundtrack doesn't help either.

I never knew this film even existed untill about a week ago. I saw it on sale at a supermarket and i was intrigued by the synopsis of the story at the back cover. I love this type of stories about paralel universes but i was not sure that a story like this could work properly as a serious romantic drama. Particulary one made-in-Hollywood. Basicaly i feared that this was another comercial sugar coated Jennifer Lopez-Julia Roberts comercial movie. I was wrong. I rented this movie totaly convinced that it was going to be bad, but, after the movie ended, i went back to the supermarket and i bought a copy for myself ! PASSION OF MIND was a real surprise to me. I´ve been reading plenty of bad reviews about it after i´ve seen it, and i can´t disagree more with them. I guess most people don´t realy get it´s idea and so rather than thinking about it, they decided the movie sucks. Possibly because it doesn´t follow that usual love-story comercial crap that make Hollywood´s so called romantic movies, most people don´t like it, because this PASSION OF MIND is a movie where you have to think along and you don´t have everything totaly explained all the time. But above all it´s an original movie, and a very good diferent aproach to a romantic story without making it look plastic.

What stroke me first was the incredible cinematography. I never before seen New York filmed in such a beautiful way. The exterior locations looked trully beautiful and it´s a real viewing pleasure just to see a good story set against such beautiful images in the background. As for the plot, i think it´s a brilliant concept and a very inteligent way of telling a romantic story. Ok it might not be the most original one if you read a lot of sci-fi novels, but in this case it was extremely well presented, with never a dull moment despite the slow pace the story moves along. A great for story for people who like "sci-fi" themes and for people who don´t. Great script, good dialogue, good ending and it keeps its mistery right up untill the end ,without giving much away through out the whole film, making us stay glued to the tv set untill the movie finaly ends. (The region 2 dvd, has an incredible image and a fantastic 5.1 sound mix wich fills the room with a perfect 3d atmosphere)

If you like stories about paralel realities, and you like this sort of existencial themes and hipotesis, you´re going to love this movie. As someone said in a review back here somewhere, this is a real good quantum mechanics movie, wich depicts very well some of the concepts present in those theories without complicating things for the viewer. Above all it makes us think and wonder. It´s a great movie to initiate a discussion about the theme afterwards and a very inteligent and beautiful romantic story. Pretty impressive actualy. As i said, a real good surprise. If you like originality, watch this. If you only like guns, explosions and special effects, stay away because you won´t get it. PASSION OF MIND is trully an execelent surprise.

Surprisingly absorbing film that requires your patience (to let it unfold) and your attention (to capture all the nuances, and they are there). Demi Moore (looking angular and pale like Courteney Cox-Arquette, yet more flexible) is very fine as a woman living parallel lives, one of which is a dream-world. She's a widowed book reviewer in France with two kids and also a literary businesswoman in New York City. Complicating matters are two separate lovers (and shrinks!) who all say that the OTHER life she's having is a dream. Plot is laid out in elementary terms (with some nice surreal edges there at the finale) and I found it a pleasant, intriguing bit of fantasy, quite romantic in its melodrama. And for the poster who hated this on both plane flights he saw it on, heads up: most films look bad on planes. *** from ****