Mark Reviews Movies: 2 HEARTS

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 15, 2020

Two sappy love stories eventually collide in 2 Hearts, which has an important message and not too much else. As for the message, it's nothing that one couldn't get from public service announcements or your local Department of Motor Vehicles, so it's not as if the movie, based on a true and likely more engaging story, breaks any kind of ground.

The gimmick here is that we watch the tales of two couples, separated by time and distance, play out against each other. In one, Chris (Jacob Elordi), a consummate joker, goes off to college and meets Sam (Tiera Skovbye), a pretty and kind-hearted young woman. In the other, Jorge (Adan Canto), the son of the head of a major rum business, meets Leslie (Radha Mitchell), a flight attendant who's kind enough to hold his hand during takeoff on one of his business trips.

The only thing that apparently connects these stories at first is how determined the two men are to woo each of the women. Chris follows Sam around campus, joins her mission to drive students safely home at night (despite not having a driver's license), and shows up at her dorm room and watches her dance from the doorway (She kind of gets back at him for this by showing up at his room, when he's only in a towel with the door wide open for no explainable reason). Jorge starts booking flights that Leslie will be on before he even calls her for the first time and is there awaiting her during a layover in Hawaii. The lesson, apparently, is that only distinction between romantic determination and stalking is whether or not the guy is charming, funny, rich or some combination of those qualities.

There's more that connects these tales—well, one thing at least. To even hint at that thing would undermine the entirety of the movie. Screenwriters Robin U. Russin and Veronica Hool (adapting Eric Gregory's book All My Tomorrows, which has a subtitle that must be omitted because it gives away the movie's game) drop some not-too-subtle hints about the ultimate correlation between these stories (A seemingly throwaway moment in, appropriately enough, a DMV says much more than it should, simply because of how superficially pointless it would be otherwise). Even having a pretty fundamental understanding of how all of this will turn out from those clues, it's kind of shocking how manipulatively the screenwriters and director Lance Hool (The production team, including a producer who's the director's brother, is a family affair) play us by the finale.

What can be explained without giving away the double-punch of a twist is that we watch the two couples court, get married, and start or try to start a family. The story primarily focuses on the men, as their real or assumed charms win over women who seem to exist solely to fall for their actually or supposedly charismatic partners. Jorge, who suffers from an uncertain respiratory condition that increasingly becomes an issue as his story progresses, is played by Canto with some soft-spoken appeal, while Mitchell's performance is as sincere as it can be with dialogue that repeatedly has her character clumsily fawn over Jorge.

Meanwhile, Skovbye more or less carries the story's other half, not only because of her genuine charm, but also because she plays Sam as a character who seems to have a life and existence that extends beyond her connection to Chris. Elordi kind of breezes through his role, playing up the jokey side of Chris to such an extent that his sudden transformation into a responsible guy, following a medical emergency that false-starts the movie (accompanied by a cliché-filled narration), never feels sincere. Without saying too much, there's a reason that's the case, but it's definitely not one that the filmmakers want to express.

Time passes. Things go well for Chris and Sam, as matters become more complicated for Jorge, who also has to deal with his worsening medical condition, and Leslie. Further description must end there. In broad terms, the story moves toward its inevitable collision between the two tales (It's only somewhat confused by the fact that no one bothered to age one set of actors in any noticeable way, save for a pair of glasses)—but not before making a brief stop at an apparently startling twist that only feels dishonest.

The filmmakers' intentions here are pure (A montage showing how much one character unknowingly helped a group of strangers and a first meeting between strangers connected by indescribable generosity are effective enough). They're overwhelmed, though, by the execution of 2 Hearts, which emphasizes manipulative sentimentality over real emotions.

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