Gillian Anderson: Playing by Heart - Movie

Playing by Heart
Cast :	Angelina Jolie, Dennis Quaid, Gena Rowlands, Sean Connery, Gillian Anderson, Anthony Edwards, Ellen Burstyn, Jay Mohr, Ryan Phillippe
Director :	Willard Carroll
Studio :	Miramax Home Entertainment
Format :	Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen
Released Date :	January 22, 1999
DVD Released Date :	February 04, 2003
Language :	English (Dubbed), English (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Audience Rating :	R (Restricted)
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Customer Reviews

Rating
Date	July 26, 2005
Summary	I don't believe in Harry
Content	Playing By Heart (1998) is the movie that first drew my attention to that extraordinary actress, Angelina Jolie. Before this, the only Jolie film I had seen was The Bone Collector. My focus then was on Denzel's role and the suspenseful story. I assumed Ms Jolie (about whom I knew nothing) was just one more young actress fresh off that Hollywood conveyor belt supplying beautiful new co-stars for the A-list male leads in top-budget productions. Later I watched her in Playing By Heart. It was an experience that I'd never had before watching any actress. Her role as Joan transcends acting. Let me put it this way: watching her, I forgot I was watching an act. For example, as Ms Jolie speaks her "dancing about architecture" lines to the camera, it's Joan seated across the table, talking to me as a good friend. In my review of Gia I said Ms Jolie's performance is one of the very best ever put to film. That's a fact. But whenever I watch Gia I never forget that I'm watching a splendid piece of acting by an amazing talent. Playing By Heart Ãs, to me, a date. A date with a beautiful, eccentric, highly-strung, fast-talking, sympathetic young lady named Joan. That's why this is my personal number-one favorite Jolie movie. Not that I'm saying that for objective reasons Playing By Heart is better than Gia, Girl Interrupted, or any other great Jolie film you may name. It's just that this is one movie that made me a fan. Like Gina in Love is All There Is or Lanie in Life or Something Like It, Joan is one of those very special Jolie characters that you are going to see in one movie and one movie only. I like her the best because it seems to me that Angelina really lets us in and shows us the whole person. There's nothing hidden about Joan. She's all right there. It's easy to get to know her, and once you do, you feel you've known her a long time. She's innocent, spontaneous, goodhearted, and as fiery as her red hair. Plus Joan dresses funny. Tight gold-lame' pants, mauve bra peeking out of her blouse...on a movie date? What a weird chick. Joan of Playing By Heart is the 180-degree opposite of Claire of Playing God. Claire is cool, elegant, watchful, calculating, a sophisticated cypher. (Don't get me wrong--I think Claire's great! Angelina Jolie's range of characterizations is just amazing!) Emotionally, Joan's incredibly needy. There's a bit too much frantic female energy surging around inside her. She's so intense in her yearning to be loved that she drives men away. The result? Loneliness. Lately she's had to resort to charmingly desperate little tricks to try to get close to guys she's attracted to. If you've seen Playing By Heart you know one trick she pulled, pretending that her car was stolen. This was to force her date-who-was-not-a-date Keenan (Ryan Phillipe) to walk her to her apartment, where she hoped one thing would lead to another. "It didn't work out," she later sighed, on the phone to her sister. Though I can't prove it, I believe earlier on she pulled another trick just to meet Keenan the first time. Years ago I knew a girl who did a similar thing to get a guy's attention and sympathy and to let him know she was available. It's the trick of pretending you just broke up with a rotten boyfriend. A girl who'll play a farce like that is hoping it'll make her seem more interesting than the unvarnished truth: she hasn't had a boyfriend for a long time. When we first meet Joan, she's this 20-something club-cat cutie talking on the pay phone in an L.A. danceteria called the Mayan. Joan's in the loud process of breaking up with "someone" she calls Harry. There's this good-looking but very reserved guy in a queue that's lined up next to the phone area. That's Keenan, the one with the blue-dyed hair. Keenan can't help but overhear Joan. She very distinctly reminds "Harry" they've been together four months..."UNTIL YOU CHEATED ON ME WITH THAT SKANK FROM BLOOMINGDALE!" At this point "Harry" apparently hangs up on Joan--just when the moving queue puts Keenan directly next to her. Joan turns and asks Keenan if she can borrow a quarter. He fishes in his pocket and finds one for her. Joan shoves the quarter into the slot, punches the keypad, gets "Harry" back on the line, and starts arguing with him about how to divide the stuff in the apartment they've been sharing. Shortly "Harry" hangs up again. Keenan gives her another quarter, his last. Joan's lucky on this call and quickly achieves closure. After hanging up she turns to tell to Keenan that the least she can do after taking his last quarter is to get him to buy her a drink. Next we see them at a table together. Joan's meeting with Keenan seems entirely accidental. But in fact Joan has had her eye on him for some time. As they talk over her martini and his Coke, she lets it slip she's seen him around in clubs like the Mayan, where she's noticed he's always dancing alone. Hmmmm...the reality of this "Harry" character becomes even more doubtful when Joan tells Keenan that she and Harry were together for five months. Keenan reminds her that on the phone she'd said four months. Ã„stonished, she smiles and marvels, "You were paying attention!" "The whole club was paying attention," Keenan dryly responds. She insists it was five months, then quickly moves on. I don't believe in Harry. I think Joan was calling her apartment from the pay phone, but in fact there was no Harry nor anybody else to pick up. The whole show was an act to lure Keenan in. After all, Joan is an actress. Moreover she later tells her brother-in-law Hugh (Dennis Quaid) that she's twice done the improvisational acting exercises that he is shown doing in Playing By Heart. We watch Hugh going into bars on different evenings to strike up conversations with complete strangers. He is supposed to make up a story about himself on the spot and get the person he's speaking with to believe it. As Hugh does this over ten evenings, he's being observed by a woman who is his improv monitor. So, again: actress Joan has gone through these same exercises two times. Which means she is very practiced in meeting people she doesn't know and getting them to believe things about her that aren't true. That's why I don't believe in Harry. Playing By Heart is a filmic narrative of five apparently different stories that turn out to be one big story. So, since there are four other movies-within-the-movie, Jolie's interplay with Phillipe is unfortunately limited. Many who've seen Playing By Heart wish that the whole movie was only about Joan and Keenan. Many agree that Jolie's performance outshines all the other actors. And what actors! Sean Connery, Gena Rowland, Ellen Burstyn, Dennis Quaid, Madeline Stowe, Gillian Anderson, Jon Stewart... Well, like I said, I don't think of Jolie's performance as a performance. I'm just glad I met Joan. Who by the way, is nicknamed Jo-jo by her Dad. Jo-jolie played her way right into my heart.

Rating
Date	May 11, 2005
Summary	Really sweet movie.Touching.
Content	This movie is sweet.I almost cryed.Angelina is wonderful in this.She was too cute.I loved Jon Stewart in it.Jon's awesome.It's one of the best movies I've ever seen.I reconmend it to anyone looking for a touching,funny,sweet movie.

Rating
Date	September 22, 2004
Summary	Talking About Love
Content	"Talking about love is like dancing about architecture." This quote is only one of the perceptive and witty barbs that the characters of "Playing By Heart" utter, and despite it, they talk a lot about love. Unlike most movies like this though, these characters have something fresh and fascinating to say. "Playing By Heart" is a sadly underappreciated gem of a movie with a great script and a cast that is almost too good to believe. That said, the movie lacks a focus that draws everything together (other than the foreseeable denoument). We meet several groups of characters who are all exploring different aspects of love. Sean Connery and Gena Rowlands, whose subltle acting is a marvel to behold, play an old married couple whose marriage is facing old obstacles. Connery is dying, and Rowlands confronts him about a supposed infidelity twenty-five years before. Gillian Anderson plays a stony theatre director who finds love in the unlikely person of a pre-"Daily Show" Jon Stewart, while Dennis Quaid and Madeline Stowe are both exploring ways to live outside of their unsatisfactory marriages. There is sensitive, quiet acting in the persons of Ellen Burstyn and Jay Mohr. Burstyn plays Mohr's mother, who is staying by her son's bedside as he dies of AIDS. I only wish there had been more of them. But most astounding of all is the story of two young clubbers played flawlessly by Angelina Jolie and Ryan Phillippe. The two actors are so real and raw that you can't help but be sucked in by their story, and ultimately their emotional openness makes you cry. I wanted to see an entire movie based on Jolie and Phillippe, they were that good. And in a cast like this one, that's an accomplishment. "Playing By Heart" is wonderfully acted. It's the only movie where you can have Ellen Burstyn, Gillian Anderson, Angelina Jolie, Ryan Phillippe, Sean Connery, Gena Rowlands, Jon Stewart, Jay Mohr, Dennis Quaid, Anthony Edwards, and Madeline Stowe share the same screen. Even Patricia Clarkson makes a brief appearance. The script is wonderfully witty and the directing is very good. Although it ultimately fails to form a definite whole, its bundle of loose threads is fascinating to watch.

Rating
Date	July 19, 2004
Summary	IT`S A MUST ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS
Content	.....and the screenplay is wonderful as are the actors. There are no fancy camera-angles or MTV editing of high speed(compared to Moulin Rouge and William Shakespeare`s Romeo+Juliet - classics in their own right), but the camera let the protagonists do their jobs and they do it admirably... Not that every character is of importance; I prefer Connery, Rowlands, Jolie and Philippe; but we all have our favorites... It`s a movie that few people would find dull, boring or just bad.... It`s a low-key masterpiece:-)

Rating
Date	June 21, 2004
Summary	Great cast, unique movie
Content	Not many people have heard of this movie, much less seen it, which is odd condsidering the number of well-known actors it stars. A few famous faces are Sean Connery, Dennis Quaid, Angelina Jolie, Gillian Anderson, and Madeline Stowe. The movie centers around several romantic relationships that you know are interconneted, but don't find out how until the end. If you're looking for romance, drama, and don't mind some tears, I would highly recommend this movie. It's become one of my all-time favorites!

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