:
Cate Blanchett,
Cate Blanchett,
Giovanni Ribisi,
more...
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Tom Tykwer,
Tom Tykwer
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: Miramax
: Drama, Foreign, Romance, Italy, Quest, Revenge
: 97 min.
: English, Italian
: English, French
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German filmmaker Tom Tykwer made his English-language debut with this feature, which was adapted from a screenplay co-authored by the late Krzysztof Kieslowski. Philippa (Cate Blanchett) is a British schoolteacher living in Italy, whose husband fell victim to a drug overdose, as have several of her students. Marco Vendice (Stefano Santospago) is a powerful local drug dealer who sold the dope which killed Philippa's husband, as well as a number of neighborhood teens. Disgusted with the inability of the police to bring Vendice to justice, Philippa takes the law into her own hands, planting a bomb which is intended to kill the dealer. However, Philippa's plan goes awry, and instead the bomb kills four innocent bystanders. Philippa is arrested and brought before the police for questioning, not knowing that the interrogating officer in charge of the case, Pini (Mattia Sbragia), is one of Vendice's secret business associates. More comfortable with English than Italian, Philippa requests a translator, and multilingual officer Filippo (Giovanni Ribisi) is brought in to serve as interpreter. Filippo finds himself falling in love with Philippa, and with his help she's able to escape and go into hiding; however, despite her deep regrets about the loss of four lives in the bombing, she is still bound and determined to see Vendice dead. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
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| Good, then starts to yawnify at the end
by rmarkd
April 9, 2005 - 10:48 PM PDT
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2 out of 3 members found this review helpful
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I know, yawnify isn't a word.
Philippa (the "hauntingly beautiful" Blanchett, if that term makes sense to anyone else) is a had-it-up-to-here teacher and decided to bomb a drug dealer. But, things don't go as planned. She's caught and sent to prison. While being interrogated, they tell her that her bomb killed innocent people, and not the intended target, and she just breaks down (in a really touching scene, I thought). Filippo (Ribisi) plays an interpreter who falls in love with her and decides to help.
The tension builds in the beginning and midpoint. It starts to get dull after the midpoint. There is one very touching scene with Filippo and his father, and a memorable train scene -- beautiful cinematography.
The end scene is... strange. Beautiful in one sense, silly in another. I guess it ties things together, but not to my liking. Still, I enjoyed the movie. 7/10. |
| Beautifully photographed, strong performances
by Cinenaut
July 9, 2004 - 9:18 AM PDT
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5 out of 5 members found this review helpful
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| Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi make an odd couple, but maybe that's part of the point of the film, which is a love story set amidst very adverse conditions. Beautifully photographed, with a tense opening sequence, Heaven loses steam towards the end, perhaps because it was hard to keep the dramatic tension going from the first part of the film. The ending might be ambiguous for some, but it worked for me. |
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 7.20)
134 Votes
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