Filmmaker Johnnie To has been releasing two to four movies a year consistently since 1995. With that kind of prolific output, it should come as no surprise when a stinker squeaks out of the man’s cinematic butt hole every now and then. His latest, Don’t Go Breaking My Heart is a nonsensical, bloated love triangle that, for the lack of a better term, and keeping with the flatulent metaphor – stinks.
The film is about one woman who is irrationally in love with two men. One of the men is an architect turned alcoholic. An alcoholic, mind you, who apparently is able to gulp uber amounts of whiskey and still maintain an unslurred speech and sober footing. Building believable characters, this film did not. The other man appears to be a perverted peeping tom. And after Mr. Peeper spots his love interest through a skyscraper window from his own office window, having previously also stalked her from his car while she was on a bus, the man winds up asking her out on a date, get this, by pressing a sign against his window. But wouldn’t you know it, the exhibitionist woman who works directly below the dumb dame protagonist has also read the sign and thinks that the message is for her. Uh-oh.
Yadda, yadda, yadda, the woman stands up the drunkard to meet with the Peeping Tom, who in turn is unable to ignore his penis and sleeps with the exhibitionist. Now, believe it or not, the film then jumps three years ahead and has the nerve to expect us to not only care about what happens to these three morons, but actually believe that somehow they all are still emotionally scarred to where they have been unable to move on with their lives. There is really no need to delve into any more plot, as it only gets more contrived.
Going off the notion that within every spread of cow shit there sprouts at least one beautiful mushroom, you know, something worth looking at, I was determined to make my 115 minutes worthwhile. But alas, this particular mound of dung had nothing interesting to look at. The acting was (place disparaging adjective here) _______, the cinematographer was as nonexistent as the reality within the film, and by the end of this entire affair I was ready to karate chop myself in the esophagus. That way at least I would have that choked-up feeling that this movie was aiming for.
I would only recommend obsessive compulsive completionists of all of To’s films see this. Everyone else should stay far away.
Showtimes for Don’t Go Breaking My Heart:
Sunday, September 25th – 6:45pm (SFFS/New People Cinema – 1746 Post Street)
