I went to this movie with every intention of liking it. Not only is the above-the-title cast amazing, but when I saw Patricia Clarkson appear out of nowhere (in Dennis Quaid's first scene), I was thrilled. I will also say right off the bat that Anjelina Jolie is an actress whose talent far surpasses her considerable beauty. But, the script... It starts off my saying "Talking about love is like dancing about architecture," meaning that talking about love is senseless and can't be done with any weight or meaning. In the end, the film actually congratulates for proving that saying wrong. In between, we get two hours of people doing very little but talking very openly about how they feel about their relationships. God forbid any of these people had something to hide or keep private from one another. There are even two scenes with Madeleine Stowe and Anthony Edwards that are almost identical in their dialogue, which is all about how she likes not having strings and he wants more from their trysts than sex. Gillian Anderson's Meredith is forced by the script to openly say things like "(you're) too good to be true" and when asked if she's been burned by love, she replied "Scalded." What a first date! I don't just mean romantically; I mean dramatically. She can't hide her pain so he can try to find it and overcome it? The only of the many segments in the film that remotely works is the one between free-spirited Joan (Jolie) and the target of her affections played by Ryan Phillipe. Her character actually talks about her life and relationships in order TO GET WHAT SHE WANTS from Phillipe's. Namely, she's opening up, so he will. (He's the only person in the film with a secret someone else is actively trying to uncover. Other characters, Quaid's in particular, have secrets, but only the audience is privy to them. No one else is trying to make any discoveries.) The film is long-winded, astonishingly self concious amd dull. Dancing about architecture makes more sense than talking about love -- at least when you're dancing you're actually DOING something.
Review of Playing by Heart
