Bleeding Heart

Despite the bad rating I decided to give it a shot, and didn't regret it. This should be a lesson for not always taking the IMDb rating for good. The story is credible and touching, and the performing was OK. God knows I saw many worse movies with better rates.

I think this movie deserves a higher rating, at least a 6.8 to 7. The performances by Biel and Mamet are great. Not as fun and Hollywood as Thelma and Louise, but I would argue that it's a better story of female empowerment. Biel plays a yoga teacher who practices and teaches peace and spirituality. Though we soon see that she doesn't have any true connection to the people close to her. Her seemingly perfect boyfriend, Dex, is controlling, although it's done in little ways that I think are so common in relationships. Biel is not truly supported and not truly free. It's only when she reconnects with her half-sister, who is a physically abused sex-worker, that she begins to form a deep bond with someone. The two women empower each other as the story progresses and find meaningful connection, amidst the trauma brought on by the sister's abusive boyfriend.

"Bleeding Heart" is the perfect title for this well-performed yet underwhelming indie offering. May is the sensitive yoga teacher and the bleeding heart of the film's title. She has reconnected with her long-lost half-sister Susan (Shiva), and the experience is transformative for May. She becomes obsessed with Shiva who is a "sex worker" in a relationship with her abusive pimp, Cody. The out-of-control May casts away all pretenses of the healing properties of yoga and turns vigilante in order save the helpless Shiva. One loses any sympathy for May when she turns on her well-intentioned boyfriend Dex, gives $1,000 of their hard-earned money to Shiva, then disrupts the life of her mother in Santa Barbara. The film lapsed into comedy when May storms into the home of "Lonely Ed," who has hired Shiva for the night. The "trick" is interrupted when May holds Lonely Ed at gunpoint, then handcuffs him to his bed. An even more preposterous finale occurs in Santa Barbara. By the end, there is not a lot of "Namaste" left for May, who is now a gun for hire ready at moment to tell her enemy, "Go ahead! Make my day!"

One of those movies that you will actually want to keep your eyes on the screen from the first second till the end.

A movie which deals with the hard life of women deceived in sex slavery for money and the necessity to survive in a society where they are just considered as objects. A movie which learns the respect of life in opposite to those who have no respect of any life including their own life.

It was actually a better film than I thought. But it should have been even better. Written and directed by a woman filmmaker and that revolves around two women. When a Yoga instructor makes contact with her sister for the first time since coming to know her existence, does not go well. At first, it was casual, but after observing her closely, she offers help in any way possible. That's when all the trouble comes out and the remaining film is to reveal how the tale concludes. For a small film like this, including its short runtime, this film does not look boring. I said that because of the concept that you might feel familiar. There are twists and turns, yet most of the film is predictable, but not bad for watching it once. The cast, particularly Jessica Biel looked good, but the other woman contributed in the performance section. Started off like a drama, but ends with thriller. The film is not for everyone. Those who don't watch films regularly might find it interesting than film critics and film fanatics. 6/10

I liked this film. The understated first half only helps the plot becomes more interesting, further on. Also, I was stunned to see Harry Hamlin. He was in one of the worst films ever made that included Sir Laurence Olivier: "Clash of the Titans" (1981). It was legendary bad! Anyway, the 4 primary characters in this film are quite good. I definitely recommend it.

Yoga teacher May (Jessica Biel) approaches Shiva (Zosia Mamet) with news that they share a biological mother. Shiva was a foster kid after their mother died when she was 12. Her pimp boyfriend Cody is volatile and abusive. May starts to fear for Shiva and invites her to her adoptive mother (Kate Burton). May's boyfriend Dex is angry that she gave Shiva $1000 for rent. After getting out of jail, Cody threatens Shiva but she returns to him anyways. This moves rather slowly and deliberately. I kept waiting for a surprise twist. I have at least three in mind but this movie just kept plowing ahead. It's like watching someone willingly walk into a buzzsaw. One questions the character. The movie needs to lay out May's life more clearly and give her a greater motivation. I don't know much about writer/director Diane Bell but she shows a bit of skills. The acting is solid. Everybody shows up. This does need something more and I'm not sure what.

..she really is impressive.. would be so easy to take the obvious way out and do the tried and true big-money course of Hollywood.. in this film we see yet another time how good an actor she truly is.. and it is great to behold.. it is no revelation it would be extremely hard to disguise how incredibly gorgeous she is.. but her acting talent just adds to her impressive allure.. how hard must it be to have had this woman in your grasp, and to completely loose it and let her go.. what an ordeal to have to bear.. this little film is mostly subtlety her, and it is worth the time spent watching.. she can do pretty much whatever she wants, but to her credit she looks for script/ character challenges.. bravo Jessica..

If you're coming to this film because you enjoy the actresses, you won't be disappointed, because they give strong, thoughtful performances. An English actor unknown to me, Joe Anderson, is particularly strong in the limited role of an abusive boyfriend. Eli Gather is an ingenious choice in the other central role as May (Jessica Biel)'s boyfriend. A fifth role is woefully underdeveloped: Kate Burton plays May's mother, but she isn't given enough material to shade the portrait of psychological control she exerts over her daughter. The story is cleanly laid out: May is a yoga instructor who lives with her boyfriend Dex in a residential studio that hosts the classes May leads. We first see her exploring the information that she has a biological sister from a mother she never knew: This is Shiva (Zosia Mamet), a "sexy massage" worker who lives with boyfriend, the psychotic Cody (Anderson). What's best about this noir representation of upper middle class and lower class L.A. are the scenes director Diane Bell writes for the May and Shiva as they reluctantly meet, go to a bar, and slowly, as they drive around (we need to see more of these locales) learn about the other, before May takes her home, where they meet the cautious, almost superciliously straight Dex, who has May on a tight leash he's only partly ready to admit exists between them -- these scenes make you aware of the possibility of borderline personality disorders the two central female characters share in their creepy relation with their boyfriends, who seem in other ways entirely opposite. The script, which results in an 84 minute film, needs to develop how the social scenes the characters belong in offer resistances to who they imagine they might be, but Bell has created a chamber piece for five characters, with three locations: Shiva and Cody's apartment (which includes a gun -- okay, that's a tired trope), May and Dex's studio, and the Santa Barbara house May and Shiva flee to when Cody almost immediately becomes possessive of his "girlfriend's" new sister. The three locations are crucial to the drama, but they don't allow the characters enough space to act out versions of who they are and what their developing relationships might mean. Mamet's Shiva is a bit of a sludge: She doesn't seem to pick up on the possibilities this latent sister offers her (where is the discussion of May's spiritual practice? How else are we to understand it?), but rather siphons off the energy others project in her, and what's that all about? The film (perhaps channeling May too closely) circumspectly denies to us the representation of how Shiva goes about her job, so that the sex worker milieu becomes almost a fantasy projection of the audience's interest in the actresses. This strikes me as an impoverished craft decision on Bell's part. Mamet seems almost to be fantasizing a sex worker, but is stronger in her work with Biel's May, and Anderson's Cody. Biel, however, is suited very well to play the highly controlled, "bleeding heart" May, whose every thoughtful decision seems to leave her farther from a life that would sustain the soulfulness her yogic work projects for her. Bell shrewdly shows how cold is this life May and Dex have made with each other, and what might be at stake in May's escape from it. Biel shows us the fragility of that life West Coast spiritualism promises its adherents, and the price it pays in the beauty it so easily affords. The cost is finally tragically high for May. It's a spare and understated close, but it satisfies our expectations.