Heights - Review

Rating: C

Heights isn't exactly a new movie, but it's still relevant. A lot of young filmmakers fall into this trap, so pay attention, or something:

New York City is a funny place. We walk around on what feels like a treadmill—walking a great deal, while never getting very far—emotionally. It’s the distance we could make with anyone outside our enclosed social/business circles. Each day, we pretend that the people we walk past aren’t worth our time. In reality, though, they’re wandering screenplays—stories we can all walk away from that much wiser. And if not that, we can at least be entertained by them.

Heights tells a New York story that falls somewhere in between. The story is articulated with a lustrous breath of style, but first-time screenwriter, Amy Fox’ story feels highfalutin and its form contrived. It’s not that the narrative is inane or unimaginable. These days, relationships are often rickety and underhanded, which is why these characters feel so real. Fox’ honesty is limited, though. If the cosmos were aligned just right during that 24-hour period, this scenario could be feasible. I mean that’s what makes a film a film and not just a mundane account of habit and ordinary occurrences. In the case of Heights, though, the story is too conscious of its themes to come off realistic. As the film develops, every little piece fits too perfectly, and the big picture is a shrunken model of what the writer had intended. It’s the overachiever who does everything just right, but whose overall presence is dulled by a lack of real experience and raw passion. The film feels jaded by its own ability to stitch an impeccable and symmetrical web, and therefore lacks the true human experience. Would our lives hold as much meaning if everything happened for a reason and we were aware of the fact?

The drifting heart, muddled sexual identities, and life’s priorities are pillars of the intertwined lives in the film, but these pillars don’t seem so sturdy when the inflated conclusion comes. It was intended to shock us, but instead it backfires with a quiet boom of tacky character reactions to a surprise that could not have happened any other way. You kick yourself for not having envisioned the ending even when you had smelled it approaching the entire time. You’re too distracted by the other interconnections to predict it, which I suppose is clever in its own right, but the ending is muted because no other piece could have tied the rest of the stitching together. So, you’re left with the feeling that this just couldn’t happen to the average Joe. ‘If the writer could only achieve this “powerful” end by putting all of these very specific variables together in very specific places, than why would this ever happen to me?’ If that last empty space could have been weaved together with any number of possible pieces, than perhaps the filmmakers could have impacted their audience in the way they wanted. The film is just not as quick-witted as it tried so hard to have you believe.

Glenn Close and the team of young actors (James Marsden, Elizabeth Banks, and Jesse Bradford) render some tame but brilliant performances. Close never outshines the others, which is not to say that any of them offer flat interpretations of their characters. They prove to us they are just as capable and will surely bring us some unforgettable acting in the future. It’s unfortunate that they couldn’t deliver them here. Despite some skilled and grounded contributions, they are still contributing to a film that smothers them by the meticulous hands of a blemished script.

After the credits rolled, I was pleased, but not gushing. In retrospect, I had been tricked into believing that Heights was a pretty good movie. Relative to what’s out now, it is good. I praise the filmmakers for their effort to entertain us with puzzle-form, but their chic presentation isn’t enough to withstand its own youthful pretensions. With time, I think we’ll see something much more groundbreaking from them, but for now we’re left with a rickety, but stylized vehicle for some fairly important issues, most of which you can find in the superior film, Closer.

Synopsis
Heights follows five characters over 24 hours on a fall day in New York City. Isabel, a photographer, is having second thoughts about her upcoming marriage to Jonathan, a lawyer. On the same day, Isabel's mother Diana learns that her husband has a new lover and begins to re-think her life choices and her open marriage. Diana and Isabel's paths cross with Alec, a young actor, and with Peter, a journalist. As the interrelated stories proceed, the connections between the lives of the five characters begin to reveal themselves and their stories unravel. Isabel, Jonathan, Diana, Alec, and Peter must choose what kind of lives they will lead before the sun comes up on the next day.

Click Here for Heights Trailer