Review of Heart Of Me, The

Introduction

If there is one thing that the British film and television industry is renowned for, it`s the costume drama. Nowhere else will you find drama expressing the most basic of human feelings in such high society with that classic British reserve. Stories that in real life would fill the schedules with Ricki Lake and Trisha Goddard, in the fanciful world of the bygone upper classes engenders a mystique and wonder that keeps millions entertained. A stiff upper lip, and a vocabulary filled with "frightfully, awfully," and in extremis "dreadfully!" are all you need to give even the most torrid of potboilers a veneer of respectability. In recent years, the costume drama has even gone as far as allowing for a glimpse of flesh and a bit of rumpy, to keep viewers tantalised. As long as the protagonists have voices plummier than plum pudding, it`s Ok. Without that, all that would be left would be a soap opera and who would want to watch that, heh? The Heart Of Me is another in an established tradition that has made the likes of Merchant Ivory a household name.

After their father dies in 1934, Dinah moves in with her sister Madeleine`s family to come to terms with her grief. It isn`t long before Madeleine and their mother are matchmaking for little sister, although the passionate Dinah deals with unworthy suitors in her own inimitable way. The inevitable happens though, and Dinah announces her engagement during a party much to everyone`s delight, everyone that is except Rickie, Madeleine`s husband who has been taken with Dinah ever since she moved in. He earnestly begs her to break off the engagement and the two of them embark on a passionate affair that can only bring tragedy to the family over the next ten years.

Video

The Heart Of Me is presented on this disc in a 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer. Aside from some persistent grain, the image remains clear, sharp and colourful throughout. Well I say colourful, but as this is a period piece, the palette is uniformly drab and autumnal, as I assume the pre war years were. The occasional splash of colour starkly contrasts this at times, often making as much of an emotional statement as the story.

As you would expect, the costumes are splendid, with the feel of the period admirably brought to life. Aiding this is the magnificent production design, with the sets and locations carefully chosen to be very evocative of the 1930s and 40s. The sparing use of CGI is also useful in that respect.

Having said that, the feel of the production is decidedly small scale, hardly living up to the feature film billing. The sets and cinematography are very 2 dimensional and lack the sense of depth or scale that a cinema production ought to have. If I didn`t know any better, I`d say this was just a feature length TV drama.

Audio

The sound is presented in DD 5.1 English, but for all that it is very front focussed, with only sparing use of the surround for ambience. The music is very nice, with some elegant choices to fit in with the period. On one or two occasions though, I did feel that the music drowned out the dialogue, which was otherwise clear enough. There are also subtitles in English.

Features

There is a small but well-chosen selection of extras on this disc, starting of course with the ubiquitous trailer.

In addition, there is a 4 minute long deleted scene, presented by screenwriter Lucinda Cox. In letterbox rough and ready format, it`s also understandable why it was cut.

Finally there is a commentary in DD 2.0, from Lucinda Cox and director Thaddeus O`Sullivan. I had little desire to sit through this drama twice, so I just dipped my metaphorical toe into the commentary. From what I heard, it seems to vary between the blindingly obvious to the excessively technical. I didn`t really notice any discussion of the film`s raison d`etre, and my brief impression leads me to conclude that it will only interest fans of the film.

Conclusion

The more I consider, the more I believe that this is a feature movie cobbled together from the kind of drama that starts on Sunday night and concludes on Monday on BBC1. It even has the dramatic lynchpin of the story, the moment that defines the tale and presages all that consequences of the affair, occurring at exactly halfway through the tale. It`s the perfect place to start the credits rolling only to squash them up and have voiceover lady announce "Tomorrow`s concluding episode of…" But I`m prevaricating in a way, as I freely admit that I`m not the intended audience for the costume drama genre.

Speaking objectively, I cannot fault the production despite its big screen pretensions. The period and the costume design are faultless in recreating the thirties and forties. The cast is peerless in their performances. Olivia Williams is great as Madeleine and Paul Bettany excels as Rickie. There is a touch of elegance from Eleanor Bron as the manipulative matriarch of the family, but the star of the piece is Helena Bonham Carter in another role that could have been written for her. It`s another one of those beguiling frump roles that she does so well and far too often. The story has a rather unique structure in that it begins in the 30`s then flashes forward to the post war years to hint at consequences to actions that have yet to occur, then zips back to the story. It`s an interesting method of storytelling that does much to keep the viewers attention.

Yet there is something about The Heart Of Me that just turns me off. It could be the thoroughly dislikeable characters. No one has any redeeming features whatsoever. Madeleine is determined to preserve her marriage at any cost, no matter how much her husband disgusts her, Rickie is willing to throw his family away for his own happiness, and the matriarch is almost machiavellian in the way she manipulates and uses her own daughters. The most sympathetic of the characters, Dinah is often selfish and occasionally spiteful and it`s even hard to like her at times. But far more depressing is the endless toll of tragedy that afflicts this family in the story. It`s a chronicle of how one affair proceeds to destroy this family and it`s like watching one disaster after another. The one hope that springs at the end of the film is a hollow and forlorn one indeed.

But as I may have mentioned, I usually avoid costume dramas with the same zeal that I avoid soap operas. I`m sure there is an audience to whom this film will appeal and entertain, and Pathe have done a good job with this disc. But it`s not my cup of tea, old chap!