There are very few movies that can have you emotionally invested into each character and Hungry Hearts is one of those movies.
Hungry Hearts, written and directed by Saverio Costanzo, stars Adam Driver (The Force Awakens) and Alba Rohrwacher (I Am Love). The two play New York City happy newlyweds who have a son on the way. As the two get two know each other more, Jude (Adam Driver) starts noticing that his wife Mina (Alba Rohrwacher) is overly obsessed with veganism, purity and cleanliness. Jude sees that these obsessions of Mina’s can do more harm than good for their son but Mina refuses to see that.
This film is an emotional rollercoaster. The film starts out with a very hilarious scene of how Jude and Mina met. Mina walks into a restroom and closes the door behind her. She then notices that the door is stuck. Jude walks out of a stall and sees Mina there trying to open the door to get out. Mina realizes that she may have accidentally walked into the men’s restroom. What makes this meeting even more awkward is that Jude mentions that he possibly had food poisoning which is why it also smells really bad in there. They two try even harder to open the door with no luck. Jude then has to go back in the stall again due to the food poisoning. At that time, Mina really wants out but still no luck. So the two try to come up with a plan on how to get out and through that awkward meeting, the two start to get to know each other.
The film takes us only through the key moments in their lives, which I found interesting. The two eventually marry and have a child on the way. Now while Mina is pregnant, she starts to develop the obsession of veaganism, purity and cleanliness. At first Jude, doesn’t see it as too big of a problem, that’s until he gets a doctor’s perspective and lets the couple know that their baby isn’t getting the needed proteins and nutrients that it needs. Mina still feels as though she knows what’s best for her and the child. Once the baby is born, the child does have some complications but turns out fine for the most part. This continues to carry over as the child gets older. The child does not receive medicine when he is sick and is not growing. Jude insist that they seek a doctor’s advice but still, Mina refuses.
As I was watching this play out, I wanted to just yell at Mina and tell her to take the baby to the doctors. That’s when I realized that this movie had me emotionally invested and that the actors were very convincing in their roles. I have never seen any work from the two actors before but after watching this film, I know why Adam Driver is starring in The Force Awakens. Both he and Alba Rohrwacher were amazing. Even Roberta Maxwell who plays Jude’s mother does really good at playing a grandmother that’s worried about her son’s family.
The only issues I had with the film were that there were some hard to watch scenes which showed domestic violence from Jude towards Mina. I also wish that there was a bit more comedy like the first scene, at least once more in the film to make it a bit more light-hearted but I’m sure that Saverio Costanzo had his reasoning for making it the way he did.
I really thought that film was a great film. The story is one that hasn’t really ever been visited in cinema and it was very interesting and satisfying. I like the fact that it was a small cast and not an over scored film, though the little music they did have in it was really good. The lack of music made you pay attention to each characters more and to the emotion that was being displayed by the characters. The ending of the film was really unexpected and jaw dropping. It will have you speechless.
I give Hungry Hearts 8 fridges out of 10.
Hungry Hearts releases June 5 in New York and on June 12 in L.A.