GurlyIamBeach
Instant Favorite.
Casey Duggan
It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny
Hattie
I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.
gridoon2018
Okay, let's start with the good words about "Heights": it's slick, stylish, absorbing, observant, and well-acted. Now let's write one not-so-good word: it's also inconsequential. In the best movies of this type (multi-character dramas where the characters cross paths, knowingly or inadvertently), every character is equally important (see "Short Cuts"); in "Heights", it becomes clear after a while that the focus is really on Elizabeth Banks (very beautiful), James Mardsen, Glenn Close and Jesse Bradford, while some of the other big names in the cast have insignificant (Eric Bogosian, George Segal) or even practically cameo (Isabella Rossellini) parts. Once the story of the principal four players is concluded, the others are forgotten and the movie ends. But it does hold your interest all the way through. Not recommended for homophobic viewers. *** out of 4.
Gordon-11
This film is about five people in New York, and their complicated connections with each other.The movie is slow and confusing to start with, as it has to introduce all the different characters, and it is mixed with scenes that would later make sense. As the film progresses, more information is revealed, and the film begins to make sense. The ending is totally unexpected, which is the beauty of the plot. The final scene at the rooftop explains everything, and yet poses more questions to be answered.What I like about this film is the character development, and also the depth of each character. Each of the five characters are convincingly human, and well portrayed. This film is a piece of puzzle, and when the puzzle is solved, it leaves you satisfied.
Slobodan Grasic
Heights is astonishing masterpiece, artistic film with the only commercial credit put in star actors such as Glenn Close, Isabella Rossellini and George Segal. Directors who had made ripe and perfect films before their thirties are rare - for the moment I can only recollect Orson Welles, who made Citizen Kane at his twenty sixth, Jim Jarmusch, who entirely created Permanent Vacation at his twenty seventh, and at recent times Paul Thomas Anderson, who directed Magnolia at his twenty ninth. Obviously influenced by Robert Altman and his interlaced narration about interrelated people represented in his late shortcuts style and Jim Jarmusch's pseudo documentary, artistic approach to movie contents and characters, the Heights at first, superficial glance resembles Magnolia, reduced of its warmth and immediate cuts. But, although the both films are equal by their strength and deepness, they are quite different in their narration and artistic expression, leaving only Altman's transformed influence as common relation. On the other side, the influence of Jim Jarmusch is much stronger, especially regarding interaction between characters, which is more important than plot, and the elegance of Heights which resembles the one of notable Jarmusch's films such as Mystery Train, Night on Earth and Ghost Dog. Certainly, that influence is not linear, but transposed into phenomenological philosophy with optimistic devotion to humans and world at all. Elegant and artistically perfect, this film can be watched coloured, as it is made, but also as black and white, without loosing anything of it worthiness. Let us hope that Chris Terrio will not run down in his career and that he is going to make such excellent movies in the future.
correcamino
I understand a lot of the criticisms I've read so far of this film. I can see how the characters might bug some people with their self-absorption. But for me, the movie had a central pillar of integrity because it was originally a play, and I thought the writing gave it intelligent coherence. For me, there always was a point.What most struck me about the film from the get-go with Diana Lee's scene (Glenn Close) teaching the master acting class was the notion that we've all become cel phone-talking, latte-drinking, status conscious zombies afraid to bust out and take a damn risk. I thought the director sort of layered this idea on top of the film in a way that I imagined Crash tried, unsuccessfully, to do. The result was, as some have noted, not a plot driven movie but a character-based one, one in which we are not surprised by much, but, again as someone else pointed out, the point is the characters' reactions to each other. I really gravitated to this idea that we have sold our souls to ambition, our future, and feeling secure in it. This idea has particular resonance for me. In their own ways, living like this dehumanized the characters. This was particularly obvious for the fiancé, Jonathan.Elizabeth Banks looks remarkably like another actress these days, not Parker Posey, but someone else -- Julia Stiles or Kirsten Dunst. I thought the entire cast was pretty decent and interesting. Isabella Rosellini's scene was excellent – she captured that subtly bullying personality perfectly.Unlike a lot of others, I actually thought Glenn Close was a little flat in her scenes away from the theater. Maybe she was supposed to be.Roger Ebert's review had some weird grammatical or spelling and sense mistakes.Rightly or wrongly the notion that corporations have won and have won us really grabbed me while watching Heights. This was one of those quiet movies. I don't mean quiet film as in understated, but literally a quiet movie/sound script. It's one of those dvds you can fall asleep to. It's so soothing, no loud noises, slow, nice, tinkling soundtrack, everyone's voices are soft. It wasn't boring. I watched it once, then started it over and fell asleep to it the second time.
