Playing by Heart . Memphis Flyer . 02-01-99

Playing by Heart

DIRECTED BY: Willard Carroll

REVIEWED: 02-01-99

Playing by Heart writer-director Willard Carroll’s loosely linked cinematic short stories set in Los Angeles, is one of those rondelets calculated to provide viewers with short attention spans the illusion of having engaged in a substantive bout with truth and beauty. Each little subplot and vignette burgeon with life and death, and they all hurtle along in their parallel universes of urban anomie toward a rendezvous in which love will triumph, however bittersweetly. The curmudgeonly might ask: Manipulative and shallow? Absolutely. But enlivened by good actors and framed in the lush cinematography of Vilmos Zsigmond, even these polished, upscale interiors of the LA haute bourgeoisie can be seen to harbor genuinely vulnerable human hearts.

The older guard is represented with easy grace and wit by Gena Rowlands, Sean Connery, and Ellen Burstyn (whose scenes are among the film’s briefest and who proves once again that she can do more with three minutes than many actors can with 30); attractive mid-life by Dennis Quaid (cast interestingly against type) and Madeleine Stowe; the up-and-coming and television crossovers by Gillian Anderson, Anthony Edwards, Jon Stewart, Ryan Philippe, and Jay Mohr. All comport themselves well. Comporting herself so well that she almost tilts the balance of this dramedy merry-go-round every time she appears is Angelina Jolie.

--Hadley Hury

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Playing by Heart

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