Written and directed by Fernando Trueba, Haunted Heart is a romantic thriller that’s neither romantic nor thrilling. There are things to love such as the unpolished acting by Aida Folch and breathtaking scenery of the Greek Isles. In general, the characters are underdeveloped and the film takes too long to get to the point where any action actually takes place. Once the plot starts being interesting, there is almost nothing revealed, making it difficult to even care.
The story begins with Alex, a Spanish woman performed by Aida Folch, who comes to work at Max’s, a restaurant owned by Matt Dillon, located on a secluded Greek island. However, it is a little over a week late to her original schedule. He has given Alex’s hostess position to someone else. After some negotiations Max does allow Alex to take another position at the restaurant a waitress. All he asks is for her to give two weeks notice before she quits.
At the start, we see Max as wise, gentle and reliable while Alex is painted as a bit of a lost cause. But then everything changes rather suddenly. Alex finds her crowd, excels at work, and turns into a sex maniac fixated on getting Max into her bed. She knows what she wants and doesn’t hold back. He is shy around her. The contrast in Alex’s character is extreme. I continued to hold on to the hope that the starry eyed bushy tailed girl would emerge, but she never does.
Max in Matt Dillon’s performance really fluctuates. There are some parts where he comes across as the quiet broken man very effectively. And there are other cases where his acting is so over the top I found it funny. The film has Alex Portrayed by Folch first as dumb, then as hot and finally scared, as the plot requires but all the different versions of the character look incomplete from one another.
For the first 60 minutes of the movie, Alex and Max just meet and first get to know each other as a couple, which a whole hour feels empty and dull. Alex settles down on the island but then starts to taunt her superior who tries to resist her in vain.
Then things go north. Alex finds a disturbing photograph of Max taken years ago. This then leads to new questions and more witnesses from his Boston past, life before the island. When Max and Alex talk it out, Max either deceives her or asks for more hours. And somehow the couple who was leading a happy life on the island manages to go on a killing spree in the span of a half hour. And it pains my heart that the reason is never revealed to us.
In the past, a partner deceived Alex and she claims not to allow it to happen ever again. But she does. Max is leaving red flags everywhere, but she does not leave. Why? We already know the answer. We never even see her grappling with such a groundshaking decision. All this is a big wasted chance to expose Alex to a larger and deeper character.
In the case of Max, we’re introduced to new peculiar pieces about him but they always seem to go nowhere. He was a musician, he had a partner and he had a child somewhere. And then something about “Malibu Canyon”. Why? Who knows? We will hypothesize and reach conclusions but “why” we will not be able to know and “what” we will hardly even know. There isn’t a narrative, only fragments of it. We do not, for example, know enough of either Alex or Max to be able to extrapolate about their characters.
For the entire third act both characters are seen loosing their temper but we are also not sufficiently acquainted with them to make this call. As far as the final scene is concerned. I felt everything just went off into different random directions. Why on earth did Max need to give two weeks notice? When the question was asked, it seemed like there was a lot more to it but in the end, disappointment takes its place. In broad terms, one could say it’s a red herring but in realistic terms, it’s just a poor analogy I guess.
But the biggest crime of all in this case of the film is that it fails to deliver enough thrills to classify it as a thriller whether it’s romantic . Someone gets killed. There are people who are after each other. There is paranoia, But I was never frightened.
I do think Haunted Heart has a certain neglected potential. It is great visually and involves an interesting process of guessing the little nuances of the backstories of the characters. But still, it does not manage to skilfully remain reticent and does not provide romance and suspense it aspires to.
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