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Playing by Heart
USA 1998
Reviewed by Mike Higgins
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Los Angeles. The personal relationships of an apparently disparate group of characters are depicted over eight days. Joan is a skittish clubber who falls for the brooding Keenan. Hugh props up bars spinning fictional hard-luck yarns to whoever will listen. Retired television producer Paul and his wife Hannah, a television chef, are coping with the recent diagnosis of his brain tumour. Trent is a single, attractive architect who by chance meets and invites out Meredith, a workaholic theatre director. Unhappily married Gracie is having an affair with Roger, also married. Meanwhile, Mildred is at the bedside of her gay son Mark, who is dying of Aids.
Keenan reveals that he is HIV+ to Joan who, to his relief, is undaunted. Gracie, it transpires, is married to Hugh, whose tale-telling turns out to be part of an improvisation class. Paul admits to Hannah to falling in love with an assistant 25 years ago. Meredith succumbs to the persistent Trent before being called away to the funeral of her ex-husband Mark. Paul and Hannah renew their wedding vows watched by their three daughters - Gracie, Meredith and Joan - and the daughters' partners with whom they are all, more or less, reconciled. Roger is the officiating minister.
Review
Following on the heels of David Kane's This Year's Love, Neil LaBute's Your Friends & Neighbors, Tony Gerber's Side Streets and even Todd Solondz's Happiness, Playing by Heart is yet another film in which a daisy-chain narrative links by coincidence and fate the lives of sundry characters. But any resemblance between director of The Runestone Willard Carroll's soft-centred comedy-drama and those other films is only skin deep.
To begin with, Carroll is too discrete with character and storyline to let the various narratives overlap with anything other than the most fleeting of connections. Before we know they're related, for instance, each of the sisters drops the epithet "anger ball" into conversation. It's nothing more than a frivolous clue to the film's ending, but that phrase itself speaks volumes about the simplistic way in which Carroll approaches Playing by Heart's basic theme: emotional crisis. Everyone - from youngest child Joan to her father Paul - is defined by little else but the single problem confronting them. So the most important thing we learn about Paul is that in the early 70s he had a crush on a fellow member of staff, a confession which enrages his wife Hannah. Besides this problem Paul's other major concerns - his brain tumour, even his children - feel trivial.
Hand-in-hand with this reductiveness is the film's refusal to distinguish between the numerous quandaries of its characters. Mark's dying moments with his mother are clearly of a more intense order than Hugh and Gracie's marital difficulties, so why lard both with the same teary-eyed schmaltz? The same naivety is apparent in the unwavering integrity ascribed to each character. In the same way certain couples decide who gets which side of the bed, the adolescent Joan and Keenan breezily agree on the etiquette of a relationship in the shadow of Aids. This uniformity isn't only skewed psychologically, it scuppers any diversity in terms of tone or pace. One has to worry when the most challenging screen presence belongs to Joan's mangy, one-eyed cat.
This being a Los Angeles-set ensemble drama, Robert Altman's Short Cuts looms large, but Playing by Heart suffers by comparison. Carroll clearly wants to make the case for the universal significance of his parochial cast of emotional casualties. At strategic points, the sun and moon rush across the cityscape in a time-lapsed round. Even the screenplay's lumbering final twist - the revelation that what we've been watching are the soap operatics of an extended family - is meant to stand as a reassuring metaphor for the all-encompassing nature of emotional turmoil. Set against Altman's panoramic web of stories, though, Carroll's milieu is resolutely middle class and the crises encountered all too predictable.
Credits
- Producers
- Willard Carroll
- Meg Liberman
- Tom Wilhite
- Screenplay
- Willard Carroll
- Director of Photography
- Vilmos Zsigmond
- Editor
- Pietro Scalia
- Production Designer
- Missy Stewart
- Music/Music Conductor/Orchestrations
- John Barry
- ©Miramax Film Corp.
- Production Companies
- Miramax Films and Intermedia Films present in association with Morpheus a Hyperion production
- Executive Producers
- Paul Feldsher
- Bob Weinstein
- Harvey Weinstein
- Guy East
- Nigel Sinclair
- Co-executive Producer
- David Witz
- Co-producer
- Kurt Albrecht
- Associate Producer
- Kacy Andrews
- Executive in Charge of Production for Miramax
- Jeremy Kramer
- For InterMedia Films
- Will Evans
- Tim Haslam
- Kathy Goodman
- Paul Davis
- Production Supervisor
- Jeffrey Berk
- Production Co-ordinator
- Michele A. Carmel
- Unit Production Manager
- David Witz
- Location Manager
- Kristi Frankenheimer-Davis
- Post-production
- Supervisor:
- Angel Pine
- Co-ordinator:
- Jill René Gilbert
- Assistant Directors
- Cas Donovan
- Kelly Kiernan
- Carla Bowen
- Script Supervisor
- Jain Sekuler
- Casting
- Liberman/Hirschfeld Casting
- Irene Cagen
- Associate:
- Merri Sugarman
- ADR Voice:
- Barbara Harris
- 2nd Unit Director of Photography
- Joseph D. Urbanczyk
- Camera Operator
- Joseph D. Urbanczyk
- Digital Visual Effects
- Digiscope
- Special Effects
- John S. Baker
- Art Director
- Charlie Daboub
- Set Designers
- Patte Strong
- Mark Poll
- Set Decorator
- Cindy Carr
- Costume Designer
- April Ferry
- Costume Supervisor
- Carlane Passman Little
- Make-up
- Department Head:
- Christina Smith
- Artists:
- Heather Lee Fraker
- Melanie Hughes
- Janeen Schreyer
- Body:
- Jane English
- Hair
- Department Head:
- Susan Germaine
- Stylists:
- Kim Santantonio
- Emanuel Manny Millar
- Title Design
- Robert Dawson
- Digital Main Titles Compositing
- Digiscope
- Digital Artist:
- Grady Cofer
- End Titles/Opticals
- Howard Anderson
- Music Performers
- Solo Trumpet:
- Chris Botti
- Piano:
- Michael Lang
- Bass:
- Leland Sklar
- Drums:
- Harvey Mason
- Saxophone/Clarinet:
- Daniel Higgins
- Harmonica:
- Tommy Morgan
- Music Supervision
- Tim Sexton
- Music Co-ordinator
- Karen Kloack
- Music Editors
- Clifford Kohlweck
- Adam Kay
- Music Scoring Mixer
- Dennis Sands
- Soundtracl
- "Drinking in LA" by James Di Salvio, Haig Vartzbedian, Duane Larson, performed by Bran Van 3000; "Angelene" by Polly Jean Harvey, performed by P.J Harvey; "Been around the World" by David Lowery, performed by Cracker; "Tijuana Lady" by Ian Ball, Oliver Peacock, Paul Blackburn, Benjamin Ottewell, William Gray, performed by Gomez; "Nightmare" by Alberto Bertapelle, performed by Brainbug; "I'm Glad There Is You" by Jimmy Dorsey, Paul Madeira, performed by Chet Baker; "Friction" by Paul Godfrey, Ross Godfrey, Skye Edwards, performed by Morcheeba; "Porcelain" by Richard Hall, performed by Moby; "Everything Happens to Me" by Matt Dennis, Thomas Adair, performed by The Charlie Haden Quartet with Chet Baker; "It's Only Sexual", "Lost Baby", "Bluff", "An LA Groove", "Homecoming" by Christopher Young; "Exactly Like Me" by Eric Bergen, Robert Eaglesham, Haig Vartzbedian, James Di Salvio, performed by Bran Van 3000; "Cigarettes Will Kill You" by/performed by Ben Lee; "Dirty Little Mouth" by/performed by Fluke; "Recado bossa nova" by Luiz Antonio, Djalma Ferreira, performed by Laurindo Almeida and The Bossa Nova All-Stars; "Samba de Orfeu" by Luiz Bonfá, Antônio Maria, Andre Salvet, performed by Ray Anthony; "Voodoo Dreams" by Les Baxter; "Surrender 2 Love" by/performed by Ottmar Liebert; "I soliti ignoti" by Piero Umiliani, performed by Chet Baker; "I Care (Soul II Soul)" by Junie Morrison, performed by Soul II Soul; "I'll Plant My Own Tree" & "It's Impossible" from "Valley of the Dolls" by André Previn, Dory Previn; "Lucius Lu" by P. Urso, performed by Chet Baker; "Lover's Will" by John Hiatt, performed by Bonnie Raitt; "Dance the Night Away" by Raul Malo, performed by The Mavericks; "Walk into This Room" by Edward Kowalczyk, performed by Edward Kowalczyk and Neneh Cherry
- Sound Mixer
- Arthur Rochester
- Re-recording Mixers
- Mark Berger
- Melissa Hofmann
- Supervising Sound Editors
- Kelly Cabral
- Wylie Stateman
- Dialogue Editors
- Kimaree Long
- Lauren Stephens
- Sound Effects Design
- Scott Sanders
- Sound Effects Editors
- Jon Title
- Hector Gika
- Robert Batha
- ADR
- Supervisor:
- Jennifer Mann
- Recordist:
- Dana Porter
- Mixers:
- Paul Zydel
- Ron Bedrosian
- Foley
- Artists:
- Catherine Harper
- Pat Cabral
- Mixer:
- Nerses Gezalyan
- Editors:
- Patricia Lamberti
- Kelly Oxford
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Dan Bradley
- Animals Provided by
- Bob Dunn's Animal Services
- Animal Trainer
- Denise Sanders
- Film Extract
- Peyton Place
(1957)- Cast
- Gillian Anderson
- Meredith
- Ellen Burstyn
- Mildred
- Sean Connery
- Paul
- Anthony Edwards
- Roger
- Angelina Jolie
- Joan
- Jay Mohr
- Mark
- Ryan Phillippe
- Keenan
- Dennis Quaid
- Hugh
- Gena Rowlands
- Hannah
- Jon Stewart
- Trent
- Madeleine Stowe
- Gracie
- Patricia Clarkson
- Allison
- April Grace
- Valery
- Alec Mapa
- Lana
- Christian Mills
- Philip
- Kelly Waymire
- Jane
- Tim Halligan
- director - cook show
- Michael Emerson
- Bosco
- John Patrick White
- Pete
- Amanda Peet
- Amber
- David Ferguson
- drag queen
- Joel McCrary
- bartender - drag bar
- Worthie Meacham
- 2nd drag queen
- Michael Buchman Silver
- Max
- Hal Landon Jr
- 'commissioner' actor
- Marc Allen Lewis
- 'Harpagon' actor
- Ron Boussom
- 'Jacques' actor
- Daniel Chodos
- 'Anselme' actor
- Mark Lewis
- waiter
- Jim Abele
- doctor
- Chris Conner
- Harry
- Marcus Printup
- trumpet player
- Larry Antonino
- bass player
- Tom Chuchvara
- drummer
- Robert English
- saxophonist
- Ryo Okumoto
- pianist
- Doris Hess
- Judi Durand
- Catherine Cavadini
- Barbara Iley
- Carlyle King
- Cheryl Tyre-Smith
- David Allen Kramer
- David McCharen
- Greg Finley
- David Randolph
- Matt Adler
- Richard Penn
- group voices
- [uncredited]
- Nastassja Kinski
- Melanie
- David Clennon
- Martin
- Jeremy Sisto
- Malcolm
- Matt Malloy
- desk clerk
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Buena Vista International (UK)
- 10,895 feet
- 121 minutes 3 seconds
- Dolby digital/SDDS/Digital DTS
- Colour by
- DeLuxe
- Anamorphic [Panavision]