Playing By Heart Review by Thom (4.5 Stars)

Playing By Heart Review by Thom (4.5 Stars) | MatchFlick

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Movie Details

All Movie Info

Directed By
Willard Carroll

Written By:
Willard Carroll

Cast:
Sean Connery, Gena Rowlands, Ryan Phillippe, Angelina Jolie, Ellen Burstyn, Gillian Anderson, Dennis Quaid, Jay Mohr, Anthony Edwards, Madeleine Stowe, Jon Stewart, Patricia Clarkson, Nastassia Kinski, Jeremy Sisto

Playing By Heart (1998)

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Movie Review by Thom
September 2nd, 2007

Talking About a Movie...

Wow.

How a movie this good slips through the fingers of, well, everyone, is beyond me. I'd never heard of this movie until about a week ago. A friend of mine loaned it to me to watch and watch it I did.

Playing by Heart, written smartly for smart people, is modern-day Shakespeare. It covers at least a dozen characters in five or six seperate story arcs, and is possessed of tragedy, humor, and, as you might imagine, love.

The movie introduces us to this bevy of characters (in an all-star cast including Angelina Jolie, Sean Connery, Dennis Quaid, and Madeline Stowe among others) one by one, and how they relate to one another is for the audience to figure out. Through a series of snappy, clever conversations, none of the characters talk like they don't know each other or themselves; you learn about them the way you learn about anyone - over the course or time. As Ryan Phillippe's character at one point so bluntly points out, "Buying me a drink isn't enough to make me go over my life story".

The story is brilliantly written, cut, directed and acted. There's nothing out of place except that which is supposed to be, and everyone that sees this film should relate to at least one - if not several - of the characters. There's a lot of resonance in the truth of this film.

Like it's own ideal that "talking about love is like dancing about architecture", talking about this movie is like singing about long division. You should see it, watch it, ah, play it. By heart even.

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