Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Forumrxes Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

sddavis63 "Hungry Hearts" starts out strongly. The opening few minutes is set in a bathroom in the basement of a Chinese restaurant. Mina and Jude (total strangers at the time) somehow get trapped in there together when the door gets jammed - just as he's rendered the bathroom - well - let's just say it didn't smell very fresh. It was actually a fun and humorous way to introduce the two protagonists of the movie. But it should be noted that the opening scene really is the only fun and humorous scene of an otherwise very heavy and even at times depressing movie. Which isn't to say that it wasn't good, but the opening few minutes doesn't really set us up for the rest of the film, at least in terms of its tone. It's also not really what I would call a thriller, even though it's billed as a thriller. A psychological drama - tense at times, perhaps - but it really doesn't have all that many thrills.After the opening scene the movie settles down for a little while, basically showing us rather quickly the evolution of Mina and Jude's relationship. They sleep together, they fall in love, she gets pregnant, they get married, they have a baby boy. All that happens in rather quick succession, and it's after the birth of the baby that the movie develops its more tense atmosphere.Basically, Mina and Jude disagree about how to raise a child. It seems to start when Mina is told by some sort of psychic that her child is "special - an "indigo baby" (some sort of silly new age idea that I had never heard of until I watched this.) Mina treats the baby strangely. She weans him very early, won't feed him any meat or protein, won't take him outside into the sunlight. It's all rather bizarre. Jude finally gets worried because the baby isn't growing. A doctor tells him the baby is undernourished, etc., etc. The two find themselves at odds over how to raise the child - which isn't all that unusual. Different parents have different parenting styles - but usually it's a conflict between the parents, with no real harm done to the child. But in this case, Mina is hurting the child. And she's doing damage to herself. She's a vegan, but more than that I thought there were suggestions that she had an eating disorder. There were references to her wasting away, and director Saverio Costanzo used some very effective camera angles that accentuated how thin she was, which suggested that she was mentally ill. Because this is billed as a thriller, you keep expecting that angle to become front and centre, but it really doesn't. There's some scenes where the suspense is built especially through the use of music - and you expect something to happen, but then it dissipates - until the end, when something shocking does indeed happen. It wasn't what I was expecting, but I did think it was pretty good.Alba Rohrwacher was the actress who played Mina - and she was very good in the role; completely believable. Her accent at times made it hard to capture some of the dialogue completely, but she did a fine job, and - to me - her performance was the highlight of the movie. Adam Driver as Jude was probably more central to the story. Jude was torn between his love for Mina and his concern for his child. Driver didn't take anything away from the movie, but I didn't think he nailed his part as well as Rohrwacher did hers.If you're expecting a classic type of thriller, this will probably disappoint you. But it's not a bad movie. It's well acted and it raises some valid issues about different parenting styles - albeit taken to an extreme. (7/10)

The Couchpotatoes This is not a thriller, it's a drama. And drama's are not really my thing. There are some exceptions but this is not one of them. I had mixed feelings throughout the whole movie. After half an hour I was seriously bored and could not wait for this movie to finish. After the boredom I became angry. Very angry. If it was the point of Hungry Hearts to make you angry then they did their job. Alba Rohrwacher played her role very well, if it was her job to make you want to smack her in the face. So after being bored and angry, two things I really don't like when watching a movie, came finally the end. The end is actually the best part of the movie. A good deserved ending, but too late for me to like the movie.

Lucas Versantvoort Hungry Hearts. For a film that's been compared by some to a Hitchcock or Polanski film, it sure holds a disappointing rating on IMDb. Nevertheless, the film has one of the better opening scenes of recent years and presents some interesting ideas despite its plodding pace.We meet Jude and Mina in the restroom of a Chinese restaurant. The door gets stuck and so do they. After the initial awkwardness of their predicament fades away, they bond a little and we find them in bed together the morning after. She gets a call from work back in Italy. She'll have to go back in a month or two. They have sex and before you know it, Mina's pregnant. She has a recurring dream about she and Jude having sex when she suddenly hears a gunshot. It's a deer, killed by a distant hunter with a rifle. After the baby arrives, she retreats into her own private world more and more, seeking to protect the baby from all outside influence. Unfortunately, this also means no meat, no doctors, etc. When this starts affecting the child's development, Jude becomes increasingly torn between his love for Mina and his paternal instincts.A psychological thriller at heart, Hungry Hearts succeeds in presenting the downward slide that is Jude and Mina's relationship. The focus mostly lies with Jude, while Mina's relegated more and more to saying that what she does is best for the child. It's engaging to see Jude trying to get out of the bind he's in: he wants to maintain his bond with Mina while also doing what's best for the child's health, but this becomes next to impossible as time goes by.While Mina gets the short end of the narrative stick for the bulk of the film, the story does intriguingly hint at where her (assumedly) postnatal depression started. Rather than seeing Jude as the victim of her sudden radical change in behavior, I believe the film hints that he may be partly responsible. Firstly, consider the fact she first meets Jude in a public restroom where he just finished a…number two. It's at least ironic when you link this scene with her eventual obsession with cleanliness. Secondly, you could argue Jude rapes her when she announces her eventual return to Italy. He playfully makes love to her, grabbing her hands and saying something like 'try to get away now'. It's all fun and games until she tells him to not come inside her which he of course does. It's not 'rape' rape, but I doubt 'consensual' is a more accurate description. Basically, the love-struck Jude doesn't want to lose her, so he symbolically traps her by impregnating her. It's also not a coincidence Mina's recurring nightmare starts with them having sex, in a kitchen no less. The whole foundation of their relationship and their baby is rooted in themes of hygiene, food and entrapment with Mina having no real say in the matter.All this and more dominates the film's excellent first half hour. Unfortunately, the film tends to get stuck in a rut after that. The film wants to build up to the decisive moment, a breaking point in Jude and Mina's struggle for their baby, but it wants to get there in a too realistically slow-paced way. We basically get the same type of scene repeated in a slightly tenser variation. Mina first relies upon Jude's trust in her regarding the baby's upbringing, but when Jude grows ever more suspicious they both rely upon deception more and more.There's also the matter of the film's wonderful opening. I'm dead serious when I say this is the only scene in the entire film that's meant as funny and endearing. While it does an excellent job in making us like the protagonists, it's also depressing when you realize it's all downhill after that, resulting in a very serious affair that in the end conflicts stylistically with the film's naturally funny opening. I'm also conflicted regarding the ending: either it's unethical and over-the-top or it makes sense in a strange utilitarian sort of way. It's a good film regardless, though one with zero replay value.

jamesstewart2048 ------------SPOILERS--------------------------- First scene: She enters in a bathroom in a movie theater set according to the sound the door does when she slams it. NO. It's not done on purpose!! It's called horrible set designer, horrible sound team!! They are stock in a toilets where he just had a poo that smells bad. That's how they meet. That's how we are supposed to establish a connection with the characters. OK. But all we can think of during this sequence shot is: WHEN THE HELL WILL YOU WASH YOUR HANDS, PIG??? But the director liked this take and said "it's OK, who cares? it'a detail!!" So they keep this take in spite the importance of this scene. And that's how everybody on the set must have act to abort this film "it's OK, who cares? it's just a detail!!" well ...i, I care!! because unfortunately I PAID TO SEE THIS Catastrophe!!!!! -The Director: Which one? The one who wasn't there or the one who was asleep or the one who thought that's enough to stick your camera to an actor's face to be called a director???? THERE IS SIMPLY NO STAGING IN THIS FILM. None. Nothing. Void. Absolute Nothingness. It is static, lazy, apathetic, i love Kiarostami and Cassavetes but here i was hoping that some TRANSFORMERS break a wall, that some AVENGER rip off half of the earth so that something happens, because a moving disaster is always better than a static disaster!!! It has the drama material for a short film and it makes a lame long long long long long 1h45 film. If you want to watch tiny innovations that makes a one room film a great film, watch UN AIR DE FAMILLE by Cédric Klapisch. -The actress is good but what can she do alone with Mister Apathy being the wheel? -The music: Flashdance!! out of the blue? why? for what? because "who cares?!!" remember? It was the crew leitmotiv while shooting. She is a vegan. He gives their baby meat behind her back. She enters, sees that and ... and some Hitchcock string waving from the sixties pop up in the middle of the silence!! THANKS DUDE TO TELL ME WHERE AND WHEN TO WORRY!! The fact is, the staging didn't made a suspense about her discovering that, so the strings are like a cannonball to say hello. A Pathetic attempt by the music to save the absence of staging. The sound: dreadful during the first scene then OK. -Finally: The message of the film: slightly dangerous: man has no balls anymore, they are sissy unable to protect there kids, it was better before???? And the final shot: a sunset after one a of the character's death, why? because the director hasn't been lazy enough? Because he has to deliver the lamest cliché ever for no meaning?? Or just to say one more time "who cares about this film? about this story? hey!! sunset!! isn't it nice?" ... ???? WTF?????????????????