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Poster for The Good Heart

The Good Heart

Everyone needs a refuge from the world.

2009 · 1h 35m · R Comedy, Drama, Romance
Directed by Dagur Kári

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Overview

Jacques is the curmudgeonly owner of a gritty New York dive bar that serves as home to a motley assortment of professional drinkers. Jacques is determinedly drinking and smoking himself to death when he meets Lucas, a homeless young man who has already given up on life. Determined to keep his legacy alive, Jacques deems Lucas is a fitting heir and takes him under his wing.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
30%
Tomatometer
Rotten

The movie's two bright spots are Cox and Dano, who perform excellently despite the dull inevitabilities the script forces on them.

Ian Buckwalter, NPR
Rotten

Cox doesn't so much chew the scenery as inhale it. Dano looks on in awe. Who can blame him? For that matter, who can blame Cox?

Mark Feeney, Boston Globe
Rotten

This odd couple never moves beyond oddness and the lower-depths shenanigans grate.

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor
Rotten

It's a strange thing, this type of whimsy. Kari offers us ideas in place of characters, and yet he expects us to see through these ideas to the real-life conditions they represent -- and then to respond to them in kind.

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
Fresh

Cox makes his reanimation a believable, joyful change of heart, rather than a labored bit of plot manipulation. He seems ennobled, not merely sentimentalized.

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

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