Alicia I love this movie so much

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Robert J. Maxwell It's atmospherically done but I don't know what it is that gets done.Let me think. Theresa Russell is married to a likable doctor, Mark Harmon, but has been having an affair with the moody James Russo. He's also a doctor. Russell knows how to pick them. Harmon knows nothing of the affair.There is a boating accident and Harmon sustains what is evidently a mortal head wound. Russell is broken up. He was a nice guy. But his body disappears from the hospital. Zip, just like that, after being pronounced DOA.Russo is delayed in his assignation with Russell in picturesque Carmel, California. She enters the motel room, which she assumes to be empty, and, Lo!, there is a confused and amnesic and paranoid Harmon. Russo finally shows up and things get even more twisted.Out of nowhere, Russell announces to a bored priest that she's had a vision of the Virgin Mary, tell her something like, "If you build it, they will come." Well -- not that, but it might as well be, since the message is so much nonsense. By this time she's going nuts and the even the most patient viewer will understand why. Will Patton, now an earnest priest, tries to comfort her and explain that God has dominion over life and death but everything else is our choice. A strange nun has recurring dreams of Russell meeting the Virgin Mary. The nun and Russell go to the place of the vision and something portentous happens but nobody knows what. A visiting priest blesses himself and stares in awe at The Spot, but it looks the same to me as it did before.I swear I'm not making that all up. There's a love triangle and some sort of supernatural dynamics are forced upon it, where it all sits uncomfortably, like a tarantula on a piece of angel food cake. I love Raymond Chandler.This one is exquisitely photographed. It's difficult to turn Point Lobos into a vision of hell but Roeg manages it. Will Patton, my able supporting player in the magnificent "Everybody Wins", is not a beneficent priest. He's a human sidewinder and nothing else. Boy, is he miscast. One glance at those staring eyes and fake grin and you think "pedophile." Theresa Russell does her best but nobody can conquer a confused script like this. Mark Harmon dies, goes crazy, and comes back to life so often it becomes boring.I'd love to recommend this because I admire Nicholas Roeg for some of his earlier work, and for his hiring my little son as an extra in one of his flicks. But my artistic integrity forbids me. Try as he might, he is no Edgar G. Ulmer. But he at least passes Cedric the Entertainer.

Joe F. Medina If you thought Titanic was the best thing since slice bread, then this film is probably not to for you. This is not your typical popcorn movie fare. When you watch a Nicholas Roeg film, you are walking into a dark world populated with individuals with fractured psyches, desperate lives and dark motives. Everything from his distinct use of visual metaphors to his trademark dramatic camera zooms to his choice of eclectic, but darkly dramatic subject matter typifies Roeg's cinematic universe. His long trajectory as a filmmaker goes back to the early 60's where he began as a camera operator and eventually became one of the most visually unique cinematographers in the business. He made his debut as a director in 1970, co-directing with Donald Cammell, the controversial film Performance, starring James Fox and Mick Jagger in his feature film debut. From then on, straight up to Cold Heaven, Roeg has maintained his eclectic cinematic style of filmmaking working outside of the studio system. This film stars Roeg's then, wife, Theresa Russell as Maria, the confused, conflicted yet unfaithful wife of Alex, played by Mark Harmon in an eerily understated performance. There are also supporting roles by Talia Shire as the mysterious nun and James Russo as Maria's lover. If you like your films to be a bit challenging, if you have some appreciation for the visually abstract, if you are keen on dark psychological cinema with a unique perspective in the vein of David Lynch or David Cronenberg, then Cold Heaven may be up your alley.

Chris Well, well....Roeg touched a bit of a nerve there, didn't he? He was a genius while he was cataloguing his various characters' descents into psychosis for a couple of decades, but as soon as he has the bad taste to suggest that redemption (or even some good advice) might be found in the bad old Catholic church, the hipper-than-thou alternative movie crowd gets extra vicious. Worse still, Theresa Russell's character - faced with experiences that nothing in her avowedly rationalist outlook has an explanation for, is unwillingly forced to deal with those experiences on another level - that of the spiritual. You know, the realm of the ignorant and superstitious, the sort of thing that the art-house cinephiles are supposed to be above. Oh, the horror... So she finds her marriage - the idea that it might be a uniquely important commitment - affirmed by what seems uncomfortably like divine intervention. People who find this idea prima facie offensive could maybe ask themselves why they instinctively jump into attack mode at being challenged to take seriously the idea of a spiritual dimension to their lives. But they probably won't. Sure, this film has some problems, notably Talia Shire's delirious hamwork as the overwrought nun, 1950s-style attire and all. And the dialogue between Marie Davenport and the young priest in their last scene is straight out of the Spellbound School of Glib Interpretations (though Hitchcock's movie escaped similar charges due to the source of wisdom having impeccably secular credentials as a Freudian psychoanalyst). But, sadly, Nicolas Roeg appears to have copped a critical mauling as much for even asking the question as for the possible answers this film presents.

Vanessa Poholek I wanted to like this movie, but couldn't follow it. It flashes back and forth and provides real time dialogue intermixed with whispers, which are the main characters thoughts. She thinks she is going crazy, and after listening to all the whispering, you will think you are, too. The husband, a role phoned-in by Mark Harmon, is either dead or alive or brought back to life, or never really got hurt. I can't figure it out. Seeing Talia Shire play an overzealous nun was just bad casting. And seeing the monsignor's face transform several times in a few seconds just made me queasy. I think it was supposed to be a metaphor for her new faith being tested. The premise of the story is impressive, too bad it didn't get the screenplay it deserved.