Lonely Hearts

Hi Aki,

Tonight we watched Lonely Hearts written and directed by Todd Robinson.

The story involves a notorious murder case in New York in 1949. A con man (Jared Leto) who preys on widows and spinsters hooks up with a femme fatale (Salma Hayek) to prey on widows and spinsters and murder them.

The film structure has a flash-forward, flashback structure, but mostly proceeds in parallel between the pathological relationship between the killers, and the investigation, focusing on the lead detective (John Travolta) who is troubled in his own way.

Credits run over a montage of shots of the period, ending with a scene of a woman who shoots herself in the head over a bathtub. Then we jump forward 3 years, as two detectives Robinson (John Travolta) and his partner (James Gandolfini) arrive at Sing Sing prison to witness an electrocution. Gandolfini’s voiceover narration then brings us back in time and carries us through the rest of the story.

The suicide, he tells us, was Robinson’s wife. After that Robinson, a tough, hard-boiled detective, confines himself to desk duty and won’t go out on cases. Until by accident he is called in on a suicide scene of a woman who slit her wrists in a bathtub. Robinson finds it troubling, and he covers the case. He knows it’s a ‘Lonely Hearts’ case and suspects murder.

Meanwhile Gandolfini’s narration also introduces us to Ray Martin Fernandez (Jared Leto), a con man and swindler who writes letters to lonely widows and spinsters. He gives them his line, takes their money, and leaves. But one time he meets in this way a real beauty Martha Beck (Hayek) who is a real psycho. She falls in love with him but is never fooled by him, and together they embark on their crime spree.

The detectives try to get a line on Raymond and his next victim. And we also see how the couple do it: Raymond sweet-talks the women, Martha pretends to be his sister, but she is driven to jealous fury when she seen him romancing another woman, and ends up murdering the girl. Raymond participates in the killing and disposal of the corpse, and they go on to their next woman.

Robinson, the detective, is troubled. He has a new girlfriend (Laura Dern) but tries to hide it. He can’t move on, he can’t face his son with a new love. His son Eddie is 15 and maybe troubled himself; neither one has fully grieved or come to terms with the wife and mother’s suicide. Because of that memory, Robinson drives himself all the harder to solve the Lonely Hearts murder cases.

In Grand Rapids, Michigan Ray and Martha find a new victim, a young widow with small girl living on a farm. It begins to look like Ray wants to ditch Martha and start over; he’s getting along so well with the widow, and when she gets pregnant he tells her to keep it a secret from Martha. But the widow confides in Martha, who promptly poisons her. The poison is still slowly working when Ray gets back with the groceries. Ray isn’t sure who to shoot, Martha or the widow; Martha challenges him to shoot her or the widow. ‘If I don’t have you I don’t want to live,’ Martha tells him. ‘So shoot, Ray, but do it out of love.’ He puts the gun to Martha’s head, but kills the widow instead.

Then he rushes to bring back quicklime to dispose of the body and is pulled over. He murders the cop who pulls him over, but the cop has radioed in Raymond’s name already. The couple go on to kill a farmer for his dog in a mixed-up effort to appease the little girl. But the girl won’t cotton to Martha, and she ends up dead and slaughtered as well.

Robinson and his partner arrive in Grand Rapids and they help the local cops track the couple to the farm. There they take them alive, and get Martha to confess. She almost brags about it. And so, in the end, Robinson and partner witness the electrocution of both the Lonely Hearts killers – and then he resigns from the force.

The voiceover tells us that Robinson takes his son and the boat he had built for his wife, and moved upstate, married his girlfriend, and took up a normal life again.

The first of the end titles tells us that the writer/director is the grandson of the detective, and dedicates the movie to the detective’s son, the writer’s father.

The movie is well made, a good recreation of the period. It moves rather slowly, and seems lugubrious. Travolta’s performance is quite melancholy, repressing his rage and grief. The only time the movie really comes alive is when Hayek and Leto are playing their games. There’s no joy there either, but Hayek really gives oomph to her insane jealousy, and when she does her sex thing, it’s funny in a sick, sick way. The movie really should have just told the killers’ story, and the domestic difficulties of the detective are a bit beside the point, though Robinson makes a game effort of connecting the two causally. He wanted to pay tribute to a famous story his family was connected with, but the real story here is not the investigation so much as the weird, sick love triangles between con man, victim, and lover.

But the chief problem is lack of any joy (or much vitality) and much suspense. The picture only comes alive when following the twisted lovers in their horrible crimes and ghastly-funny declarations of romantic love. Martha is particularly loopy in this regard. As for suspense, the flashback structure lets us know the bad guys were caught, and the only suspense we really are left with is whether the cops can prevent the killers from killing the little girl on the Grand Rapids farm.

(26 April 2009)