Heartless is a very grim fairy tale and I don’t mean the brothers Grimm. Ugly duckling Jamie has been plagued with large prominent birthmarks all over his body giving him low self esteem and lack of confidence to seek companionship. The birthmark on his face is heart shaped, caused by his dad when he kissed him on the head at birth (or so his dad told him). His main passion is photography and he spends his days frolicking about snapping pictures of rundown buildings and trash in east London. When he’s not doing that he’s being chased by demon molotov cocktail wielding gangsters. Yes, literal demons. Or are they? By the end of the movie I’m not so sure. Yes, it’s one of those movies.
I don’t mean that in a bad way, but Heartless definitely tries to juggle a lot on its plate. This isn’t necessarily a weakness as this movie does an amazing job playing off on sheer moodiness. The movie does have horror themes but it offers so much more, the majority of the movie is painted with such a dark grim picture of despair, with no peaceful or beneficial outcome in sight. “There is no God” and “Suffering is eternal” are along some of the numerous disparaging remarks uttered in the movie by various characters which bring the point home, but amidst this despair is always the faintest glimmer of beauty and hope.
There is hope for Jamie, as he somehow comes into contact with a strange character known as Papa B. Papa B has the power to take away Jamie’s much loathed birthmarks, but for a price. Why does Jamie make such a foolish deal with such a shady character who openly admits he exists to cause chaos? Yes, this can be seen as very stupid, but I looked at in a fairy tale context. Many dumb deals in fairy tales have been made out of pure desperation, and this case is no different. Papa B also has this weird Indian little girl following him around; her role in the movie is mainly to goad Jamie into committing acts of murder.
See, the terms for that skin treatment was Jamie has to bring Papa B a human heart at the doorstep to any church (heartless…get it?). There’s even a very well done scene of pure dark humor when an arms dealer working for Papa B assigns Jamie the weapon he has to use to cut the heart out with (which just so happens to be an old hunting knife of his father’s). And this is all in about the first less weird half of the movie.
I got to say this movie was a fun little trip. I found it pretty entertaining, even when things from a story point perspective didn’t fully mesh. I was mainly watching for the experience, and in the end it has a proper moral like all good fairy tales.
