My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To - Movie Review
What do you get when you take the kid from Almost Famous and let him flex his acting chops in an ultra violent, guttural family drama?
The most original take on horror since The Eyes of My Mother.
Let’s discuss.
There are few films that take my breath away. Film nowadays has become so easy to manufacture that there’s little that’s shocking or original. I can name a handful of films that knocked me out in the last decade. Films like Midsommar and The Witch restored my faith in film as an art, but the movie that haunts me is The Eyes of My Mother. It’s on equal footing with the original Martyrs in the affect it had on me as a person.
Why?
Because it felt real. It felt inspired. In place of sprays of bright red gore there was a deep sadness. These type of films wound you in a way that’s indescribable. You have to feel it yourself to understand. It’s painful to watch and even more so to finish. Questions unanswered nag at your mind and you wish there had been something else that could be done. Horror is at its best when you emphasize with the protagonist. Horror has always been an inclusive genre to all comers, because all of us suffer. All of us as human beings can feel terror, helplessness, and pain. Any one of us could fall prey to an unhinged person with a vendetta. It’s for this reason that you invest in horror stories. Unlike any other genre race, gender, and sexual orientation don’t matter. These characters don’t deserve that pain.
I say this so that you understand the gravity of the comparison in my initial stanza. My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell it To stands shoulder to shoulder with The Eyes of My Mother, Midsommar, The Witch, and Split as films that have made an irreparable impact on my life as an artist.
My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell it To is a slow burn indie horror film from writer/director Jonathan Cuartas. This is his debut long form film and I don’t know how he’s going to top it. Known more as an editor, Jonathan is a veteran in the arthouse scene. This film looks like a AAA product. It’s shot in timeless fashion without being pretentious. There’s a sepia look to it that lends a timeless feel to the project. While watching with my normal movie night partner, Leslie, we both were unable to place the time period it takes place within, due to the production design being so crafty and ambiguous. Every detail was planned. The clothes the characters wear, the furniture in the house, and the music make everything confusing and unsettling. It’s masterfully done, but it wouldn’t work without the right actors. Luckily for the film, they’ve got a handful of powerhouses.
This is the best performance off Patrick Fuget’s career. I’ve been a fan of his since Almost Famous. He’s the star of one of my favorite movies of all time, Wristcutters: A Love Story, but I’ve never marveled at his acting ability. He’s almost always reacting to other people’s kookiness. His talent at reacting paired with his comedic timing reminds me of my old Meisner classes. Even then, I wouldn’t have said he was leading man material. This move changed that. Fuget is the closest thing we get to a protagonist and he smashes every scene. For a film that doesn’t have much exposition, we get all the answers we need from the weariness he brings into frame. You can see his guilt and regret in every movement. You feel for him even as he does unspeakable acts, because he doesn’t enjoy it. He doesn’t revel in violence. He hates it. He hates what he’s become. You can see his humanity clinging on and you just hope he finds a way to escape the fate looming over him.
Standing in stark contrast is his sister, played with a fiery intensity by Ingrid Sophie Schram. Relatively unknown, Schram has mostly been featured in background roles in films like Phantom Thread. Her performance is powerful. She plays the part of the middle child with a viciousness akin to a female lion. Her unsettling presence is the scariest thing in the film. It’s not that she’s abusive or overbearing, it’s that she’s fundamentally flawed in her devotion to her family. Her family is her life. She’s never made friends or dated. She’s never gone out after work to have fun. She has no ambitions or goals. She protects her family no matter the cost. She is so certain that what they do is right that she can’t let anyone else have a life either. She can’t let her little brother be seen. She can’t let her older brother be free. She needs everyone to live in her hell. Schram’s performance is the type that makes stars.
The final piece to the family is the youngest brother with the strange affliction played by Owen Campbell. He reminds me of the protagonist in George Romero’s Martin. Not in his veracity or moodiness, but in his damaged psyche. He doesn’t know why he is the way he is. He doesn’t know anything about the outside world. He’s weak and powerless, but somehow just as threatening as Romero’s groundbreaking anti-hero. He is the albatross around his sibling’s neck and he knows it. He doesn’t vocalize it, but you can feel it in his expressions and his suggestions about family outings. He’s a kid who just wants to be a kid, but he’s not allowed to leave the premises. He’s just as trapped as his siblings, if not more so. Yes, he’s a monster, but not by intent. He doesn’t enjoy or even understand what the cost of his condition is. It’s just how he’s always been. He is the heart of the film which shouldn’t work, but it does. By the end, my heart hurt for this little guy, when I should have hated him.
That’s the trick here. These are real people. These are characters who hate their circumstances as much as we do, but they’re trapped. Just like we all are when we get into an inescapable rhythm. Think about it. Once you’re in that adulthood pattern of troubled sleep, work, meal, repeat—you get to a point where you just can’t break it. Depending on your shift you’ll let relationships fade, time passes quickly, and by the time you reach retirement you’re just a ghost. It’s a horrible reality for most people.
It’s why I had a literal nervous breakdown two years ago and nearly ended my life.
This film induced those feelings in the best way. As sad as it is, the film was uplifting in the fact that the cycle gets broken one way or another. If nothing else, you’re not a member of this family so anything is better.
This film feels like Wes Anderson riffing on a Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
I’m not going to spoil a whole lot here, but be warned. Below I will put my head cannon on what the story is and what the answers I think are correct to the mysteries of the film. After you watch the film, comeback and check it out.
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To me the film feels similar to Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews. A child hidden due to an unknown malady hopes for escape. I feel as if this feeling of familiarity extends to the relationship between the older siblings. There is little to no affection shown between these two. Moreover it appears like aversion that is deeply rooted within their psyches. My idea is that their little brother is a product of incest. It would explain why their parents are nowhere to be seen and why they don’t want their little brother being seen. He was born in the house and has never left. This would also explain the sister’s intense jealousy when she finds out that her brother, that she loves in more ways than one, has a relationship with a sex worker. The fact that he’s being intimate with a stranger incenses her far beyond what it should for a normal sibling. When Fuget looks at her, there’s a downtrodden guilt there as if his actions with her in their younger years were the fire that forged his chains. Their brother’s malady is a result of inbreeding and thus is another reason they keep him hidden. Though they do love him, if he’s revealed to the world a simple blood test would reveal their sin.
That’s just my idea. I have 0 evidence to support it other than my own observations.
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This movie needs to be experienced to truly understand. It’s a quiet, moody film that has effective scares and gross outs without being gory. It plays off the old Hitchcock there of what you don’t see is the scariest thing.
Watch this movie if you like films like Martin and Midsommar. If you like slow burn horror this is the film for you.
My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell it To is streaming on Amazon Prime.
