It turns into a weekend away. Its only when Cassies sexual passion is ignited that Van Pattens performance comes alive, and then The Violent Heart gets interesting: She sees no limits and has none, while he has the burden of his familys expectations and the pressure of having to find a career. For 75 minutes or so, writer/director Kerem Sanga seems to be rooting around for a narrative foothold, but admirably sidestepping melodramatic cliches for the stuff of mundane realism you know, indie-film fodder about character and setting and the disappointments and tragedies we all understand are unavoidable elements of Life on Earth. Drama. 958, This story has been shared 897 times. What Time Will 'Strange World' Be on Disney+? When a local, 18-year-old high school senior named Cassie (Grace Van Patten) stops in to get the oil changed on her fathers car, what starts off as an awkward, halting friendship eventually blossoms into romance. Grace Patten (left) and Jovan Adepo play the lovers at the center of The Violent Heart.. By opting to have your ticket verified for this movie, you are allowing us to check the email address associated with your Rotten Tomatoes account against an email address associated with a Fandango ticket purchase for the same movie. But contrary to the portrait painted by a weirdly evasive screenplay, it's not just because she's a teenager and he's an adult man. Fifteen years after his sister's senseless murder, Daniel finds himself falling for a vivacious high school senior named Cassie. The Violent Hearts transformation from well-meaning drama to Something Else left me cold. If you chose to provide an email address, it will only be used to contact you about your comment. Yet, a lot of what comes before is not bad at all. In addition, Jordan Preston Carter briefly appears as the young Daniel who witnesses his sister's murder. No MPAA rating. Daniels rage has been welling inside of him since the fateful night of his sisters murder, while Cassies only starts to seep in through a sudden crack in the hull after school one day. 2023 IndieWire Media, LLC. Only 1 left in stock (more on the way). Related Daniel and Cassies fundamental imbalance in life experience is racially coded. Struggling to find his path in life, Daniel works at a Sometimes, when a movie ends with a twist, it makes you want to rush back and rewatch the entire story to see how the filmmakers pulled it off. Shes a white high school senior and hes a Black 24-year-old ex-con working as a mechanic at the only place in town that will hire him, but those arent the differences that ultimately threaten to tear them apart. by Ed McDonnell DVD . The Violent Heart. Fast forward 15 years and he is a mechanic who can't get any other jobs because he went to jail over a fight! Part romance, part mystery/thriller, and part melodrama, it follows a 24-year-old mechanic who, as a child, witnessed his older sister's murder, as well as an 18-year-old high school senior who's ready to rebel. The age gap reverberates in a different way between Daniel and his much-younger brother (Jahi DiAllo Winston), who misinterprets his own family because he wasnt alive to see it fall apart. The Violent Heart lies somewhere between a chasm that divides soft-peddled melodrama and Young Adult fiction.It's unlikely director/writer Kerem Sanga intended the story to be categorized as either melodramatic or Young Adult.. Aaron attends high school in the smallish, rural community. Her dad Joseph (Lukas Haas) is also her English teacher not as awkward as youd think, she swears and Cassie would rather have lunch with him in the cafeteria than any of the kids her own age. Jovan Adepo (" Fences ," "Overlord") plays Daniel, a 24-year-old trying to get into the Marines in order to escape his small town and put his tragic family past behind him. ), Cut to 15 years later, where the 24-year-old Daniel (now played by Jovan Adepo of Watchmen) is working at an oil change/repair shop after having served time for a violent incident when he was in high school. High school senior Cassie (Grace Van Patten) is an only child who's so close to her father, Joseph (Lukas Haas), that she doesn't mind the fact that he's also her English teacher. And then he meets Cassie (Grace Van Patten), a high school student who must have been 3 at the time of the crime. Hes 24, lives with his mother (Mary J. Blige) and teenage brother Aaron (Jahi DiAllo Winston, who was terrific in Charm City Kings), and hopes to join the Marines like his father. Where did they hide the clues? . Marvel Movies Ranked Worst to Best by Tomatometer, Jurassic Park Movies Ranked By Tomatometer, Golden Tomato Awards: Best Movies & TV of 2022, 10 WTF Horror Movies to Watch if You Loved M3GAN. Okay I'll stop there. Your purchase helps us remain independent and ad-free. Our Take: Fate serves to be fatal for The Violent Heart, which was an otherwise passable, well-acted, nicely directed, rather humorless and slightly boring but otherwise watchable drama until the presence emerged to accelerate the plot to ludicrous speed. The writer and director, Kerem Sanga, has created a world for his characters where messy relationships abound. As fort he meaning, I've got nothing to say. $9.99. But what The Violent Heart aspires to is at odds with what it is capable of achieving.There are some great performances here by Lukas . Please reference Error Code 2121 when contacting customer service. 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Movie Both romantic leads are as strong as the screenplay allows them to be, which is strong enough to make us care about them, even as the movie falls apart. The retired center teamed with Gabby Williams of the WNBAs Seattle Storm to beat former Detroit Pistons guard Richard Hamilton and Spanish tennis player David Ferrer in a basketball game on the famed clay of Court Philippe-Chatrier. But the movie seems afraid to come out and name what we and the actors know that its depicting. [4], Principal photography began in February 2019. : Everything We Know About 'The Resident' Season 7. Struggling to find his path in life, Daniel works at a local auto shop and dreams of enlisting in the Marines like his father. 1,160, This story has been shared 1,062 times. Directed by Kerem Sanga. When deeply buried secrets of their town are revealed, reverberations of the violent past threaten to tear the couple apart. Crack, sploosh, glub glub. Director Kerem Sanga may not be working at quite the same level, but his stirring new film pays effective tribute to the likes of Magnificent Obsession and A Place in the Sun through its vivid self-belief that audiences will buy anything so long as they get enough bang for their buck. Their scenes unfold patiently, allowing the two to discover each other in DP Ricardo Diazs spacious widescreen frames. If this one still bites off more than it can chew, its ambition nevertheless reaffirms Sanga as a skilled and emotionally sensitive filmmaker whos attuned to the low-frequency wavelengths that tend to get flattened out by stories with this kind of sweep. A promising but self-thwarting film like this is more depressing than an outright bad or dumb one. Coming Soon. They hit it off. But he has a criminal record and would need a rarely granted waiver. 2023 METACRITIC, A FANDOM COMPANY. Related By this point, Daniel has internalized his fury, which has gotten him in trouble before. There are no featured audience reviews for The Violent Heart at this time. We want to hear what you have to say but need to verify your account. 107 minutes.) Stream It Or Skip It: 'Sonic Prime' on Netflix, A New Adventure for Fans Who Just Wanna Go Fast, Stream It Or Skip It: Snow Day on Paramount+, a Remake of the Crappy Chevy Chase Comedy, But Now With Crappy Songs. Fifteen years after the murder of his older sister, 24-year-old Daniel (2020 Emmy nominee Jovan Adepo) finds himself falling for Cassie (Grace Van Patten), an outgoing high school senior, in this Romeo & Juliet-style thriller set in the American heartland. She repliesto reports of incidents that shattered his self image and wounded his soul with counter-examples of bad stuff that just happened to her. Why not let the story be what it's already inclined to be? (We do not see the stranger, but we have the sneaking suspicion hell resurface sometime later in the story. The killer has never been caught. suggesting a diversity update. I struggled mightily with this film. When the elusive melodrama The Violent Heart begins, Daniel is a child who idolizes his older sister Wendy (Rayven Symone Ferrell). Families can talk about the violence depicted in The Violent Heart. Fifteen years later, Daniel lives at home with his mom and teen brother Aaron. [5], It had its world premiere at the Deauville Film Festival on September 9, 2020. Instead, its beholden to a string of coincidences, guilty of withholding information that, once revealed, ruptures the credibility of all that came before. 35,289, This story has been shared 7,823 times. Sanga moves these people around the board like chess pieces who are oblivious to the gambit thats being orchestrated around them, and the under-developed aspects of The Violent Heart often leave the impression of a film that was reverse-engineered from its shattering endgame. He looks at her with warmth and uneasiness, while she has the perky, tempestuous energy of someone who could get a guy into serious trouble. and shuffles into the woods. He runs, tumbles into a ditch, peers out. Common Sense and other associated names and logos are trademarks of Common Sense Media, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (FEIN: 41-2024986). Mary J. Blige brings the weight of painful life experience to her role as Daniels mother, and Lukas Haas at least has fun playing Cassies father, a role that makes so little sense you may still be laughing about it a day later. Meanwhile, Kimberly Williams-Paisley as Cassies mother lurks on the sidelines for much of the movie, waiting for her big moment a moment that when it finally arrives seems borderline ridiculous, like just about every late development in this blood-soaked melodrama. And then Fate arrives to amp up the tension with relentless artificiality, shotgunning plausibility out the window into the road where its trampled by stampeding lemmings, then squashed by a fallen blimp. Just leave us a message here and we will work on getting you verified. Recipients of grants will receive up to $7,500. We cant possibly know where their connection will take the two, and that open-endedness is whats best about the movie. All Rights Reserved. Newly rebellious, Cassie is quick to assure Daniel that shes 18 and capable of making her own decisions, and she pursues a relationship with him. The Violent Heart, writer and director Kerem Sanga's third feature (premiering in competition at France's Deauville Film Festival), falls on the dull side of the dividing line. The Violent Heart was a VOD / Digital release in 2021 on Friday, February 19, 2021. This is not to say that its not entertaining in a way, its even more entertaining for being insanely ridiculous. Rate It! It was released on February 19, 2021, by Gravitas Ventures. Variety is a part of Penske Media Corporation. On DVD/Blu-ray: April 20, 2021 Drama, Thriller | 1h 47m Synopsis Trailers Cast Reviews The Violent Heart Fifteen years after the murder of his older sister, 24-year-old Daniel (Jovan Adepo) finds himself falling for Cassie (Grace Van Patten), an outgoing high school senior, in this Romeo & Juliet -style thriller set in the American heartland. Daniel sees his sister sneak out the door and follows to a dark, secluded spot in the woods, where she is killed. Stay up-to-date on all the latest Rotten Tomatoes news! The first getting-to-know-you conversation between Cassie and Daniel is a disaster of bad writing, and yet its intended to do a lot of heavy lifting in terms of establishing their immediate bond. Ultimately, The Violent Heart's tragic aspects make it difficult to watch, but it's worth the effort because of the cast. 2,200, This story has been shared 2,148 times. It starts with a brutal one that will linger in the background for a while to come. In The Violent Heart, writer-director Kerem Sanga (The Young Kieslowski) wants us to believe that were watching a sensitive post-racial romance about a goody-goody white Tennessee teen who challenges her familys unexamined biases by hooking up with the local bad boy who is Black and six years her senior when in fact, the movie pulls a fast one in the final act. Set on the Riviera, a young marquise buys a camera from a photographer. The Violent Heart is a 2020 American drama film written and directed by Kerem Sanga. Race isn't overtly mentioned, but the movie is set in Tennessee, and Cassie's parents (Haas and Kimberly Williams-Paisley) mention "that boy" and how "troubled" he is, so it's there all the same. The movie's strengths revolve around Daniel's story arc: his childhood trauma, his desire to join the military and make his father proud, his devotion to his mother (the excellent if underused Mary J. Blige) and 15-year-old brother Aaron (Jahi Di'Allo), who goes to the same high school as Cassie. 'The Kardashians' Season 2 Finale Reveals How North West's Iconic "Stop" Sign Moment Happened, Kim Kardashian Says She Travels "With a Cup in the Backseat of the Car" for "Pee Anxiety" on 'The Kardashians', Every Pete Davidson Moment in 'The Kardashians,' From Showering With Kim to Remembering How She Rejected Him, Where Was HBOs 'The Last of Us' Filmed? But the classic that "The Violent Heart"seems to want to channel, deep down, is "Imitation of Life," a rare 20th Century Hollywood film that dealt directly with racism and sublimation in a prototypical (i.e. Be the first to review this title. The car needs work that will take overnight, so Cassie ends up asking Daniel for a ride back to the high school. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. This story has been shared 44,515 times. 2,148, This story has been shared 1,449 times. Interviews with leading film and TV creators about their process and craft. Fifteen years after the murder of his older sister, 24-year-old Daniel (2020 Emmy nominee Jovan Adepo) finds himself falling for Cassie (Grace Van Patten), an outgoing high school senior, in this. 'Masterpiece' Head Susanne Simpson Teases 'Sanditon' Season 3 Is Her "Favorite One" Yet, Millie Bobby Brown is a Sword-Wielding Dragon-Slayer in First Damsel Footage. He spots his teenage sister, Wendy (Rayven Symone Ferrell), hustle out the door with a suitcase to a waiting car. 897, This story has been shared 830 times. Starring Jovan Adepo and Grace Van Patten. Coming Soon. 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