Heartaches (1981) User Reviews

An oldie but a goo-die

[carmenv · 10/10 · 6 March 2005]

I recently caught this film on Showtime, after looking for it for well over twenty years. I had first seen it as a young girl, but it is just as fresh, sweet and endearing as it was back then. If you get a chance to check it out, please do. Margot Kidder is hilarious as Rita, and Annie Potts is good too. The ilm is essentially about a young woman who is really just learning about the world, and she is lucky enough to connect with an older, more experienced woman who is good hearted and kind. They run into many adventures along the way, and of course become friends. This must have been a sleeper back then, but it is still a gem. They don't make too many sensitive films that are funny anymore.

You gotta have heart

[martin63 · 8/10 · 6 October 2001]

This flick is tricky to come by, but it is available on video and is extremely likable. A very young Annie Potts plays an insecure pregnant woman who is afraid to tell her husband that he is not the father of the bun in the oven. She runs away and moves in with Margot Kidder's raunchy man-hungry drifter. The chemistry between the two make it a hard show to resist. A female buddy movie with a refreshing lightness of touch and some beautiful cinematography.

Some people actually search for this on DVD...

[fedor8 · 10 September 2007]

Another "classic" from the rich well of Canadian cinema. The film, however, has a serious flaw regarding its morality: a hypocritical little floozy (Potts) has sex with her husband's (Carradine) buddy and runs away - pregnant - to the "big city" where she hooks up with an obnoxious, immoral woman, played by Kidder. And yet the film-makers quite obviously expect the viewer to like these two! Potts even criticizes Carradine for the lifestyle he leads (as if she didn't know about it when they hooked up) - and in the meantime she cheats with his friend and runs away without any explanation at all. Yet we are supposed to side with HER because she boohoohoos all the way to Toronto. (Since when are tears paramount in deciding who is right and who is wrong - about anything?) Kidder has never looked worse. How do we explain her breakthrough in films? I think we might know the answer to that one...

Pauline Kael, an old woman posing as a film critic, likes this movie. That says it all.