Customer Reviews

Lonely Hearts

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was lucky enough to catch this movie from beginning to end on a local cable station. In the first five minutes of the film, I was so engaged that I could not change the station. I really enjoyed watching this movie. The characters were very funny and realistically human. At the end of this movie, as with any great novel, I wondered what else would happen to the characters. I highly recommend this movie for viewing.

Lonely Hearts is one of my all time favorite movies. Peter is approaching fifty and single. Through a matchmaking service, he meets the much younger and beautiful (but repressed) Patricia. They start dating and their lives bloom. The film is quirky, funny, and endearing. Both characters have their faults but, no matter, you will love them by the end of the movie. I hated for the film to end. I have watched it many times and it never grows old.

This is a very simple film about two fairly simple people who find that love is never so simple. Norman Kaye plays a 49 year old piano tuner who, following his mother's death, attempts to meet someone through a arranged dating service. He is introduced to a much younger woman, who as a result of domineering parents has come to isolate herself from others and to fear intimacy. The ultimate outcome is fairly predictable (while remaining open-ended in the way of life, and against the grain of standard Hollywood films that like to tie everything up neatly at the end), but the director has chosen to satisfy the basic demands of the romantic comedy while avoiding both cliche and melodrama. The result is a set of fine and subtle performances, and a light and easy style that nevertheless does not shy away from frank depictions of the neuroses that each of us possesses but can rarely face up to, and depicts the inescapably sexual dimension of relationships both directly and with sensitivity, neither aiming to exploit the characters or titillate the audience. In many ways this reminded me of the films of Cassavettes -- though the film feels a bit less epic and overwhelming than most of Cassavettes film, it is slightly more optimistic without being false.

I just caught this for the very first time and it's a great film--the kind that renews my faith in the medium. The leads are the type whom I found myself pulling for. In addition, as with all good films the characters have continued to linger in my imagination. Moreover, it's the kind of story that beautifully illustrates the restorative powers of love. Very highly recommended.

Norman Kaye plays Peter, an eccentric single piano tuner who is approaching 50 and has just lost his mother. He turns to a dating service to meet women and is paired up with a lonely back clerk, Patricia [Wendy Hughes] and they hit it off from their first date. These two are so suited to each other despite the age discrepancy [Patricia is much younger than Peter], yet they share many similar interests that keep them connected - music, theatre, even a night of geriatric bingo bonds them. Yet the romance is not without troubles - Patticia is sexually repressed, probably an outcome of being a single child with domineering parents and has only recently broken away from her parents by moving into her own place. Yet, her parents continually try to interfere in her life and drive her up the wall as she strives for normalcy in her love life. She turns to her therapist to sort out her sexual intimacy issues and Peter tries to be patient with her, though without much success.

Ultimately, Lonely Hearts is a story of two lonely, nice people who have spent so much of their lives being good children [Peter towards his mother, and Patricia towards her parents] that they yearn for freedom - to be their own person, with their own lives and to be able to love freely. The two leads are amazing in their performances. Norman Kaye [who also composed the score for the movie] is perfect as the eccentric yet tender-hearted Peter. There is a really funny scene where he pretends to be blind at a client's place, and she escorts him out to the gate, where he promptly gets into his car and drives off! The expression on the client's face was simply priceless! Patricia as played by Wendy Hughes is well-cast as well - her Patricia is emotionally vulnerable with her pain showing through so clearly as to make us very sympathetic towards her character.

This is a beautiful movie that will appeal to those who like a solid drama with humor and poignancy in it. There is never a dull moment in this!

While many Australian directors of the '70s and '80s repeatedly turned to period nostalgia, broad satire and Hollywood-derived thrillers, Paul Cox moved on a more personal path, quietly exploring troubled romantic relationships in modern, middle-class suburbia...

After years of making (mostly short) experimental films, Cox attracted the attention of a wider public with "Kostas," a touching account of a Greek-immigrant taxi-driver's love for an Australian divorcée... Invalidated by obviousness in its portrait of class and racial prejudice, it nevertheless paved the way for "Lonely Hearts." Again an engaging romance - this time between a middle-aged piano tuner and a shy and frigid bank clerk, introduced by computer-dating - the film's emotional honesty was heightened by a fine comedy and by a penetrating awareness of repressive parental pressures: exerting their right to live together, the lovers expectedly win their freedom...

Other reviews have covered the story line so I won't do that again. I guess I just didn't get it. A lot of other reviews have indicated how much they like this movie and how touching and funny it is. I just did not find it very touching or funny. Like a lot of movies, it is not a terrible film, just not very engaging for me. Maybe it just appeals to certain viewers. I'm just adding my rating to balance the ratings total a little. I think a lot of viewers would not find this as interesting as many of the reviewers here do. Maybe we just don't get it, but that is OK - the world takes all kinds.