The Heart Machine (2014) User Reviews (7)

Love is blind

[comepokys · 7/10 · 16 May 2015]

I can understand why some people might not like this movie. But I feel that the reasons why this movie gets such bad reviews are exactly the reasons why this movie is so good.

Sure, the movie is very slow paced, the actual story telling keeps being stalled, and the main character doesn't do anything even when he has more than enough evidence. But isn't that what love does to people?

To me, the movie uses this slow, almost destination-less, cinematography to evoke in the viewer the feelings Cody feels throughout the movie. Even when he has more than enough evidence to know the girl was lying to him, he still loves her and is so confused that just doesn't want to believe the truth. He keeps avoiding reality, trying to find more and more evidence hoping to find something better. So all the crazy scenes, all the empty shots, all the stalling, pictures the way in which someone might react to an inconvenient truth.

Passable

[sergelamarche · 6/10 · 21 March 2021]

Not too bad and the idea is acceptable. I think someone smart could have known easily if she was nearby just by seeing the sunlight. That is my problem with it, both are not smart characters.

Unoriginal Catfish

[lumacented · 1/10 · 22 June 2014]

I wanted to leave within the first 10 minutes. The movie drags on and on, extremely slowly. I only stayed because I was with other friends and also because I knew the director, the actress, and the production cast were in the audience and I did not want to disrespect them. But wow, this was dreadful. The movie honestly could have been summed up into a 10 minute short story. I don't want to give out any spoilers but... He basically finds out serious information within the first 15 minutes of the movie, but he goes through unnecessary loops throughout the whole movie to confirm what was already known. Honestly, this movie reminds me of what happens when you give a privileged kid a lot of money and he makes a crappy hipster movie. It was long, awkward, lots of forced improv acting, and completely unoriginal. Also, did Apple sponsor the movie? I saw the Apple brand at least 25 times throughout the film.

A reworking of a 17 minute short by the same director-writer

[xhidden99 · 3/10 · 27 February 2015]

The writer director originally made a 17 minute short on this with some of the same cast. Clearly someone paid him to bulk this up to a feature length work. Problem is it's the same 17 minute film dragged out to 85 minutes with nothing new to add. It's slow and dull and leans heavily on mumblecore and hipster clichés of random dialog and in medias res scenes that have no beginning or context. You're supposed to be bored and baffled I guess. At any rate the dialog is weak and stupid because it's supposed to be real. But who wants to overhear random snippets of other people's lives? It does not a movie make. Of the two main characters, one is an obsessive paranoid and the other's a sociopath. But again that's supposed to be uber cool in hipster Bushwick. BTW is Bushwick really 100% upper class white kids? Well anyway as others have noted the plot is very simple the characters are all extremely odd and the whole thing is totally pointless. Add to that a lot of shakycam and closeups of phone and laptop screens and you'll be left wondering why this didn't stay a 17 short.

Meager plot, unnecessary long search by main character for the obvious, and not enough material to waste one and a half hour for

[JvH48 · 2/10 · 3 November 2014]

Saw this at the Leiden Film Festival 2014 (LIFF), where it was part of the official American Indie competition. I was disappointed, to say the least: meager plot, nothing in it worthy to take our time for nearly one and a half hour. Though the final scene clarified all, including reasoning and conclusion of the two main characters, it all boiled down to nothing relevant. I cannot find more words to say something about this movie, but at least this text now has enough lines to satisfy IMDb.

On a final note: The whole chase seemed redundant to me, as there are several technical ways to backtrack someones Internet addresses and phone numbers and pinpoint the country where they are located. But that is the computer nerd speaking here, thereby completely spoiling the plot. In other words, I assume that I do not belong to the target group, who may be interested in the romantic aspects of the story and consider the technicalities as mere tapestry. Most of the reviews I saw focus on the new ways we have to build a romantic relationship by virtue of new ways to communicate with each other, but I don't think this movie will teach you anything new or otherwise thought provoking.

worst movie

[chan_nikita-240-337192 · 1/10 · 16 February 2015]

the trailer looks cool, and my boyfriend and I watched it, I stayed through the movie only because my bf wanted to see whether the ending will be something surprising. But no, I would like to say this is the worst movie I've watched for awhile. I think this movie totally waist one and an half hour in my life. Its very slow, boring, and no deep meaning at all. Everything you can see from the movie is something already done before.

You will see this have high rating in rotten tomatoes and shows up in apple TV. Just let you know, I saw apple brand in the movie for many times. From now on i think I won't trust what apple TV recommended anymore.

Waste of Time

[bettywilson · 2/10 · 19 December 2015]

I very seldom have ever had a really bad reaction to a movie...but this one did it for me! I ended up speeding it up...morbidly curious as to how it would end. This movie was so miserably dark and depressing that any 'lesson' that could have been had in regards to using the internet for 'romance' was totally lost... Granted, it may be a good idea to 'teach' people to be cautious and sensible when it comes to searching the internet for romance... But these characters...especially that of the girl's...was so emotionally a total wreck, that it was a poorly presented lesson. Yes, there are some sick minds out there...but instead of this movie showing the dangers of internet romance...it seemed to only emphasize the disturbed and emotionally needy mind of the young woman.