Film Preview: Hearts and Bones (2020)

Film Poster

Page Revisions:

(November 15, 2020) Original

Release Date:

November 20, 2020

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “In Ben Lawrence’s beautifully acted debut feature, a war photographer Hugo Weaving and a refugee Andrew Luri discover a photograph that threatens to destroy them both. Daniel Fisher Weaving returns home, and despite his partner’s protests, prepares for his next dangerous overseas assignment. At the same time, he is preparing for an upcoming retrospective exhibition of his work from the world’s war zones. South Sudanese refugee, Sebastian Aman Luri has built a life in Australia, living happily with his wife and young child. When he learns that Daniel’s exhibition may display photographs of a massacre in Sebastian’s village 15 years earlier, he finds Daniel and appeals to him to exclude those photographs. An unlikely friendship develops between the two men, but it is severely tested when Daniel makes a shocking discovery. Hearts and Bones centres around the relationship of these two men, from very different backgrounds, who bond over their shared trauma. Andrew Luri, who has never acted before and was driving a garbage truck when he auditioned for the role, and Hugo Weaving both brilliantly convey the intricate relationship between the men. With these two powerful performances at its centre, Ben Lawrence has made an intelligent, morally complex and deeply moving film.”

Poster Rating: B-

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Review: There’s some creative attention to detail here, namely the inset photos being arranged to look a bit like a camera’s aperture. With Hugo Weaving’s photographer as the central figure, it’s more than appropriate, though it still employs design concepts that we’ve seen quite often.

Trailer Rating: C / C

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Review: (#1 & #2) Neither trailer does a good job selling this look into a man’s past and his inability to come to terms with the horrors he’s seen. As an exploration of post-traumatic stress, it doesn’t do a very good evoking a sense of growth or identification and it makes both trailers rather difficult to appreciate.