SXSW 2010: THE GOOD HEART Review

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SXSW 2010: THE GOOD HEART Review
[With Dagur Kari's The Good Heart screening as part of SXSW 2010 we now re-post our review of the film which originally ran when the film premiered in Toronto.]

On this, the first day of the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival, I find myself in the odd position of having to pay the exact same compliment for the second time in two days.  In my advance review of Nicolas Winding Refn's Valhalla Rising I complimented the Dane for finding ways of remaining true to his very particular vision of the world while simultaneously finding new facets to himself.  This is also very much true for Iceland's Dagur Kari.

Kari now has three features to his credit, each of them set in a different country, each of them performed in a different language.  What unites them all is Kari's over-riding concern for characters on the fringes - often outside the fringes - of society.  But far from repeating himself, Kari's constant returning to this them has been marked by a steady growth and maturing of his characters.  In Noi Albinoi we had Kari's picture of disaffected youth.  In Dark Horse moved into their thirties.  And in The Good Heart, though one of his protagonists is the youthful Paul Dano the core of the film is the brilliant Brian Cox as Jacques, a cantankerous aging man forced by failing health to finally look back and evaluate his life.

Paul Dano is Lucas, an emotionally fragile young man reduced by circumstances that we never learn to living in a scrap-wood and cardboard shack under a highway overpass, his only friend the young kitten he has adopted and takes care of.  Given his horrible circumstances Lucas makes a horrible, but thoroughly understandable choice:  he attempts suicide, waking from his failed attempt in the hospital, where he is put in a ward with Jacques (Brian Cox).

Jacques is a truly miserable - but gloriously so - SOB.  He smokes.  He drinks.  He swears.  His entire life revolves around the bar that he owns and lives in, maintaining it as a grimy, run down oasis where only his small group of regulars is allowed.  No women.  No walk-ins. Jacques' philosophy is simple: there is no problem that can't be solved by violent cursing, a philosophy that has served him well but for the fact that it has left him entirely friendless but for his dog and with a major case of hypertension that has seen him in and out of hospital so much that the staff all know him by name, this most recent visit being for his fifth heart attack. 

Though on the surface a truly odd couple, Lucas and Jacques recognize in each other a certain commonality and so, upon release, Jacques seeks out the young man - since returned to his humble shack - and takes him in to his bar / home to teach him the trade.  But don't think it's charity!  No, Jacques is clear.  A man needs to know that he can rely on his bar always being there and with Jacques health failing he needs someone to carry on the legacy.  Lucas is his choice.

The particular brilliance of Kari and his work lies in his close attention to character and his refusal to over-explain.  Though both Jacques and Lucas very clearly have complicated histories, Kari doesn't bother with them at all.  He simply introduces us to them as they are now and lets us live with them for a while.  While there certainly are plots points that must be hit and a steady progression to the story, Kari is never so beholden to plot that he can't stop awhile to simply spend some time trading stories in the bar and enjoying the company of its motley patrons.  There's the chimney sweep, the flower shop owner, the garbage man, the quiet man who has come in for a single morning espresso every day for years without ever saying a word, the gigolo, and - finally - the man who simply sits quietly at the end of the bar without ever saying a word.  And that guy provides a key insight to how Kari works because that totally silent man - a man whose highest level of engagement with anyone in the bar is the occasional staring contest with Jacques' dog - is played by Nicholas Bro.  Yes, the most recognizable face in the supporting cast - a man who they brought in from Denmark for the production - is entirely silent.

Filled with the sort of quiet quirks and oddities that bring these people to aching, vibrant life, The Good Heart is easily the most confident and self assured work of Kari's career.  It is beautifully shot and flawlessly performed by the stellar cast, a film that packs a considerable emotional punch.

The Good Heart

Director(s)
  • Dagur Kári
Writer(s)
  • Dagur Kári
Cast
  • Paul Dano
  • Brian Cox
  • Bill Buell
  • Boði
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Dagur KáriPaul DanoBrian CoxBill BuellBoðiDrama

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