Review of Heaven (1987) by Cody G — 03 Dec 2008

It's a sad experience wanting to like a film so badly when there's so many obvious and tragic flaws- this was the problem with 'Heaven'. It seems almost impossible to misstep with a movie like this on paper; I mean, the plot was creative and wrought with tension, the backdrop and landscape of the film was gorgeous (Italy much?), and I don't think you can ask for two better actors than the lovely Cate Blanchett and the sadly underrated Giovanni Ribisi. So what exactly went wrong?

It's actually very simple. Execution. The entire film felt awkward to me because there was a mistake made in the developmental process, and I don't know exactly who I should accredit that to. Like I said, the entire thing sounds amazing on paper- a woman takes justice into her own hands in a corrupt society, missteps, and is rescued by a man who agrees with her cause and they fall in love on the run. Amazing, right? Amazing until the film starts trying to establish this relationship. And that is where it horribly fails. It's one of those situations where the viewer is just supposed to accept that they're magically and irrevocably in love without any sort of development or meaningful dialogue- they're just in love. That's it. This is not to say that Blanchett and Ribisi didn't have any chemistry, but how much can the actors really do when most of their scenes together are spent in silence with an orchestral score in the background, making intense eyes at each other? It felt pretentious for this very reason, like the director or the writer was trying to make some sort of veiled, mysterious statement about love. Unfortunately, it didn't work, and through most of the scenes I was sitting there shouting, "SAY something to each other already!". And they rarely ever did.

All in all, I would say "Heaven" is worth watching because it's not a complete train wreck. Oh, and Giovanni Ribisi is really hot.