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A Good, Heartfelt Tale
A story that bridges generations and continents
Brian Cox and Paul Dano in The Good Heart
One of the great things about this city for movie lovers is the vast array of little known and “under-the-radar” films that play here and in L.A. and often nowhere else. It is these obscure, human-orientated cinematic gems, often effective despite being in other languages or born from other cultures that form an artistic beachhead against the soul-deadening crass commercialism of the Michael Bays and J.J. Abrams of the film world. One of these releases is The Good Heart, which opens in New York, April 30, 2010.
The Good Heart is a tale brought to us by Dagur Kari, an Icelandic filmmaker who has garnished great critical acclaim through his relatively recent yet powerful career. The son of renowned Icelandic writer Petur Gunnarsson, Kari graduated from the National Film School of Denmark in 1999, and his senior college project, a short titled Lost Weekend went on to win 11 prizes at various film festivals. Since then, Kari has gone to direct Dramarama in 2001, Noi the Albino in 2003 and Dark Horse in 2005, all of which also received critical acclaim and multiple international awards.
The Good Heart is Kari’s first film in English and stars the accomplished Scottish actor Brian Cox as a grizzled and world-weary bartender who begins to look after a homeless young man. Cox has performed onstage with the Royal Shakespeare Company, drawing notable praise for his starring turn as King Lear, and is probably best known to American audiences as the original Hannibal Lector in Michael Mann’s 1986 thriller Manhunter, as well as the villainous Col. William Stryker in Bryan Singer’s 2003 superhero epic X2: X-Men United; Cox’s other recent work includes portraying the unscrupulous Ward Abbott in Universal’s Bourne franchise, parodying screenwriting instructor Robert McKee in Charlie Kaufman’s 2002 dramady Adaptation, and Woody Allen’s 2005 thriller Match Point.
The wayward youth in The Good Heart is portrayed by Paul Dano, a local actor from New York who has drawn more and more favorable attention in the past few years. His previous films include 2002’s The Emperor’s Club, 2006’s Little Miss Sunshine and There Will Be Blood, and 2009’s Taking Woodstock; he’ll next be seen in this summer’s Knight & Day. Both Cox and Dano come from a commendable history of dramatic work, and combined with the tale of multigenerational brotherhood spun by a rising director from across the sea, The Good Heart will undoubtedly be a must-see attraction for cinephiles living in the city. For more information, please visit www.moviefone.com.