FALLEN HEARTS/ VC ANDREWS FALLEN HEARTS
US, 2019, 88 minutes, Colour.
Annalise Basso, Jason Priestley, Kelly Rutherford, James Rittinger, Jason Cermak, Jessica Clement, Chris William Martin, Matthew Nelson- Mahood, Todd Thomson.
Directed by Jason Priestley.
This is the third television version of the VC Andrews novel, the third of five, only three filmed, in the series focusing on the character, Heaven. This presupposes audience knowledge of the central characters and their past. It assumes the story of Heaven, her mother and her death, her stepfather, being brought up in the wilds of West Virginia and considered backwoods, her love for a young boy at school, her being adopted out, her affair with her guardian, the discovery of her origins, going back to the rich Boston family, the revelation about who was her father, her affair with his brother… There is also the clash with her wilful and promiscuous sister, Fanny. There is the background of this young woman and her relationship with the Reverend who took in and impregnated her.
The story takes place several years later. Annalise Basso appears once again as Heaven. She is antagonistic towards her seeming grandfather who, in fact, had had a relationship with his wife’s daughter and so is Heaven’s father. His played by Jason Priestley once again, but very stilted performance as before, but Priestley is the director of this film, Paul Shapiro the director of the other two. Once again Kelly Rutherford gives an over-the-top performance as Heaven’s grandmother, this time dying of cancer.
Heaven think she is over the relationship with Troy, her father’s brother, manufacturing the toys which is the industry which supports the family. Now, Heaven marries Logan, who has been in love with her from school days.
As with the other films, credibility is continually stretched, melodramatic event piling on melodramatic event, some over-the-top moments of performance by some of the cast. And, in extreme contrivance, it seems that Troy engineered his own suicide and survived – with a visit to Heaven and her infidelity. She is continually tortured by her younger sister, Fanny, who had had the child by the Reverend focuses on money, taunts Heaven, is pregnant again – and, by contrivance, by Logan.
Extreme complications, Logan admiring Heaven’s father, working for him, the situation of Fanny’s pregnancy, the boyfriend whom she marries, the discovery of the complete manipulation of the family, especially Heaven’s father who was urged to keep away, has married again, has a young son whom Heaven wants to adopt, but whom Fanny abducts. Court proceedings, absolute revelation of everything, $1 million payoff to Fanny, adoption, Heaven giving birth…
