Untamed Heart
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| Untamed Heart | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Tony Bill |
| Produced by | Tony Bill Helen Buck Bartlett |
| Written by | Tom Sierchio |
| Starring | Marisa Tomei Christian Slater Rosie Perez |
| Music by | Cliff Eidelman |
| Cinematography | Jost Vacano |
| Editing by | Mia Goldman |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Release date(s) | February 12, 1993 |
| Running time | 102 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Untamed Heart is a 1993 film starring Christian Slater and Marisa Tomei. It mixes drama with romance and comedy and tells the story of a young woman, always unlucky in love, trying to find happiness with a very shy young man. The film is directed by Tony Bill and written by Tom Sierchio. The original music score is composed by Cliff Eidelman.
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[edit] Plot summary
Caroline (Tomei) is a young woman working as a waitress who is always unlucky in love. Adam (Slater) is a shy busboy who saves Caroline when two men try to rape her on her way home one night. She then gets to know him. They become close, but she finds out his past, and the attackers come after Adam for revenge. As their relationship progresses, Caroline discovers that Adam has a heart defect, though he claims he has a baboon heart. After catching a hockey puck at a game, he dies of heart failure in her car.
[edit] Production
Tony Bill discovered Tom Sierchio’s screenplay for Untamed Heart during one of his talent hunts. He asked an agent at William Morris to send him screenplays from new writers. Originally, Sierchio’s screenplay had been submitted as a writer’s sample. Bill showed the screenplay to producer Helen Bartlett who suggested that they option it. Within two weeks of Sierchio handing his script to his agent, MGM had greenlighted the project. Originally the film was entitled, The Baboon Heart in honor of an infant named Baby Fae (born 14 October 1984) who received a cross-species heart transplant from a baboon to fix a congenital heart defect.
Initially, Bill had not considered Christian Slater for the role of Adam, “but then it was just the obvious choice."[1] For the role of Caroline, Bill remembered auditioning Marisa Tomei for his earlier film, Five Corners. She had been too young for that role but after her success with My Cousin Vinny, he knew she was right for this film.
Sierchio’s screenplay was originally set in New Jersey but for logistical reasons they could not shoot there. The filmmakers considered finding a location to double for the state but while Bill, Bartlett and Sierchio were scouting in Minneapolis, they realized that it was the perfect place because of its strong acting community (they cast 35 of the film’s 40 roles from it) and a large commercial producing community which allowed them to utilize a mostly local crew.
The city’s locations were also a strong factor in deciding to shoot there. The centerpiece was Jim’s Coffee Shop & Bakery, which actually existed at the time of production but was closed to the public for the duration of shooting the film. Bill said, “It had a wonderful combination of ingredients from every diner you’ve ever been to; we’ve done very little to change it for the film. In fact, we changed the original name of the diner in the script to reflect that it is Jim’s."[2]
Principal photography began in March 1992 amidst cold temperatures. However, several scenes in winter were shot in May and fake snow had to be created to maintain the illusion.
Tomei wanted to have a believable regional accent and chose a driver who was from the area and could act as her “dialogue coach.” Once she got the accent down, she continued to speak in it on and off the set.
[edit] Cast
- Marisa Tomei as Caroline
- Christian Slater as Adam
- Rosie Perez as Cindy
- Kyle Secor as Howard
- Willie Garson as Patsy
[edit] Critical responses
Roger Ebert, a film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times felt that the movie was "kind of sweet and kind of goofy, and works because its heart is in the right place."[3] Hal Hinson of The Washington Post said that the film "is hopelessly syrupy, preposterous and more than a little bit lame, but, still, somehow it got to me."[4] Vincent Canby of The New York Times, said that the movie "is to the mind what freshly discarded chewing gum is to the sole of a shoe: an irritant that slows movement without any real danger of stopping it."[5]
[edit] References
- ^ "Untamed Heart Production Notes", MGM. Retrieved on 2006-12-20.
- ^ "Untamed Heart Production Notes", MGM. Retrieved on 2006-12-20.
- ^ Ebert, Roger. "Untamed Heart", Chicago Sun-Times, February 12, 1993. Retrieved on 2006-12-20.
- ^ Hinson, Hal. "Untamed Heart", The Washington Post, February 12, 1993. Retrieved on 2006-12-20.
- ^ Canby, Vincent. "Boyfriend Has Heart Of Baboon", The New York Times, February 12, 1993. Retrieved on 2006-12-20.
[edit] External links
