MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Zachary Wigon
Once again we have ourselves a film tackling the subject matter of human connections and relationships along with technology’s role – both beneficial and detrimental – in the matter. These films portray millennials reliant upon a smattering of websites and smartphone apps that give them the ability to instantly connect with one another physically and/or pseudo-socially, yet ultimately failing when connecting face-to-face emotionally. The difference with Zachary Wigon’s debut, compared to the others, is that his film, The Heart Machine, is an intimate exploration bereft of judgement or ridicule.
Cody (John Gallagher Jr.) finds himself in quite the conundrum early on in The Heart Machine as he is beginning to suspect that his long-distance girlfriend, Virginia (Kate Lyn Sheil), may not be residing in Berlin as she says, but rather gallivanting around the West Side while Cody sulks around Bushwick hunting for clues. This sneaking suspicion has spontaneously led Cody into the role of an obsessive amateur sleuth – complete with flannel button-downs – awkwardly working his way through a series of supposed acquaintances, uncomfortably rifling through their cellphones and computers, and gleaning no information whatsoever.
If he is right, it would be a devastating betrayal, one that would perhaps leave him wary of online relationships throughout the duration of his life. If he’s wrong, he would be, quite possibly, the world’s most paranoid partner, thus effectively destroying a carefully cultivated relationship with someone he truly cares about. Either outcome seemingly ends in embarrassing heartbreak with Cody playing the fool.
Shot in intimate close-up by cinematographer Rob Leitzell, the film appears to be smothering the viewer into the headspaces of the two characters, headspaces filled with paranoia, self-loathing, regret and guilt eventually leading to a cumbersome engagement of sorts. The Heart Machine benefits greatly from Leitzell’s soft-focus close-ups and spatial-aesthetic framing while Gallagher Jr. and Sheil expertly handle the emotional side of things; Gallagher Jr. expresses himself as the embodiment of paranoia and patience understanding, while Sheil effortlessly embodies earnest emotional connectivity mixed with self-contempt adrift in the sloshing existence of self-examination.
With The Heart Machine, Wigon displays how easy it is to honestly convey a rash of emotions through a computer screen but when those opportunities present themselves in the face-to-face variety, the exhibition is nothing but stammering and stunted exchanges. Wigon’s film brilliantly culminates with a mixture of climax/anti-climax, displayed in a sea of whitish rooftop closure with endless possibilities engulfing both characters. The Heart Machine is a calculated exploration of the emotional connections obstructed by our technological advances, unrelenting in their hindering.
