The Heart of Me

You know that a tearjerker is in trouble when the characters cry more than the audience, but that's precisely the case with this Fannie Hurst-style weeper dressed up in Masterpiece Theatre trappings. A romantic triangle set in the London of the 1930s and '40s involving two utterly dissimilar sisters (the ostentatiously eccentric one played by Helena Bonham Carter and the prim, sophisticated one by Olivia Williams) and the hapless husband (Paul Bettany) of the latter, The Heart of Me is basically a formulaic women's picture of the sort that Warner Brothers churned out regularly back in the day. But where those hackneyed old movies were campy and fun, here director Thaddeus O'Sullivan plays things in a somber and serious fashion--apparently considering the story of a staid husband cheating on his ever-so-proper wife with her free-spirited sister to be some sort of high art. Carter comes off especially badly; she opts for excess, a dubious choice given the arch, stiff upper lip emoting of all the other performers. Viewers who can't get enough of BBC-2 might enjoy this lethargically paced dramatic flatliner, but others are advised to take a No-Doz prior to watching. Not recommended. [Note: DVD extras include audio commentary by director Thaddeus O'Sullivan and screenwriter Lucinda Coxon, seven minutes of cast and director interview excerpts, a four-minute deleted scene with an intro by Coxon, a trailer, and a weblink. Bottom line: a small but decent extras package for a deadly dull film.] (F. Swietek)