Himlens hjärta

"If you don't know someone after 20 years, how will you ever…" This is the big question that the movie Heaven's Heart asks the audience to face – if you can't really understand your spouse after 20 years of marriage, how can you ever truly understand anyone at all?

The film Heaven's Heart begins with the audience seeing the main couple of the film, Susanna and Lars, getting a divorce and they have no idea why. The film then flashes back to 6 months earlier to a dinner party between Susanna & Lars and their best friends Ann & Ulf. At this dinner party the topic of infidelity is brought up because a colleague of Lars has left his wife and kids for a much younger woman. Susanna and Ulf both defend the man – saying that if he has really fallen in love then it is much better that he should leave his wife and kids then staying and being miserable. Lars and Ann both argue strongly against infidelity, saying that they would never want to risk everything they have and they wouldn't ever consider it. This division of opinion between Lars & Ann and their spouses brings the two together in their realization that they both greatly fear that their spouse will find someone else and leave them. The connection that Lars & Ann make eventually leads them to beginning an affair. In the end, although Lars & Ann have previously claimed to be in love, Ann ends up renewing her vows with her husband Ulf, and although they are divorced it appears that Lars & Susanna will also be reuniting despite everything they have been through.

It is disappointing that a movie with a very interesting premise and a group of seemingly strong and complex characters would turn out to be so mundane. At the end of the day everything turned out the same. While both Ann & Ulf and Susanna & Lars have suffered great trials in their relationships during the year that the movie spans they both end up back with their spouses exactly where they began. I thought that I was going to be able to be proud of at least a couple of the characters in the film, but in the end I turned out to be hugely disappointed by everyone except for Elin, Lars & Susanna's daughter who is never actually shown on screen.

Ulf is a player from the start, always discussing with Lars if he should pursue an affair with another woman. While he has never been unfaithful to Ann in action it seems that his heart has wondered off more than a couple times.

Ann is a tragically insecure woman who has lied to her husband from the start out of her fear that he wouldn't marry her/would leave her. I was incredibly frustrated by her and her half-hearted justification to her best friend over how she could essentially steal her husband.

Lars was an incredibly weak character, who turned out to be quite the manipulator in the end. While he seemed very sweet and innocent at the beginning of the affair, he basically turns into a con-artist when he comes crawling back to Susanna after his relationship with Ann ends.

Susanna was a character that I really wanted to like but in the end I was so disappointed with her – I almost would have enjoyed the movie if she had been able to stay strong and tell her ex-husband to shove it when he tried to get back with her, but instead of moving on and realizing she deserved much better than Lars, she held onto his hand and looked into his eyes – signaling that she too would like things to go back to the way that they had been before.

The main thing that actually kept me interested in the film was the impressive use and color in both the wardrobe and set choices. I loved the way in which the director and set designer were so specific in the colors that they choose for absolutely everything in the film, it was a great way to enhance the film and keep the audience engaged. Even without hearing the words spoken by the characters the evolution of their clothing and the furniture around them told a very clear story. For example at the beginning of the film both Ann & Lars are wearing a similar periwinkle blue when they bond over their fear of spousal infidelity and they begin an affair. After the affair is begun the audience only sees Ann in bright, bold colors – while Susanna is always seen in black. The stark contrast between the two women's clothing is a very telling sign of the state of their relationships. Overall the use of color in the film is the most engaging aspect.

While this movie, in the end, has an extremely mundane plot, it is not necessarily a bad movie; it's just not a very good movie. The use of color as a story telling element and the compelling sets that are designed around tables and conversation make for a very interesting visual experience and overall makes this movie one worth viewing simply to see how simple choices like clothing & furniture color can make such a huge impact on a film.

It was a long time ago you saw that many staring eyes as in this Swedish movie. You thought this kind of acting ended with "Lord of the Rings".

But this is quite another film. Two couples in their middle-ages are best friends. Until something happens. It gets more and more complicated, the lies are more or less clever, until the bubble bursts.

Catastrophe is always around the corner here and the viewer feels as much tension as the characters. It's rather creepy, but acted in such an unrealistic way, that you sometimes laugh there you shouldn't. An ambitious try however. A relation story which is very far from all the tiresome comedies you watch about the subject.

Danish director has directed a marriage drama cast with four excellent Swedish actors. From beginning to end it is beautifully filmed, strongly acted and well written. The story involves two middle-aged married couples who live in lush houses, have good jobs and are set in their ways, perhaps too much so for some or all of them. The dinner conversation when the two couples spend an evening together is the elegant starter of the infidelity drama that follows. This is tough and sometimes excruciating drama, though it does have pieces of playful dialogue throughout; there is also a dose of sweetener added at the end, but interpret it as you wish.

The settings are restricted to a few rooms of their two houses and go along with a style of photography and direction that insists on intimacy and requires precision on the part of the performers. The chamber drama style has been compared to certain moments of Bergman's career, usually favourably. There are also some surprising moments where the director draws attention to himself, for instance by allowing the actors to look straight into the camera; I think this helps keep the film engaging for the interested viewer.

A sidenote on the film title. It's possible that this double-metaphor romantic cliché is meant as some sort of irony on the part of the director, but it refers to nothing in the movie and almost kept me from wanting to see the it. It's already hard enough for films like these to survive in theatres without sticking nonsense titles on them.