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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Salesrank: 9967
Released: December 26, 2001 |
| Our Price: $3.00 |
| Used Price: $1.79 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Treat yourself to a laugh-out-loud look at romance when an eccentric piano tuner and a shy bank clerk fall in love in this heartwarming romantic comedy that critics call a gem of a film (The Hollywood Reporter) and the Australian Film Institute named Best Picture of the Year! Peter (Norman Kaye) is quirky, a bit homely and quickly approaching 50a man in dire need of a well-matched mate. But when a dating service offers him a chance to find romance, he meets Patricia (Wendy Hughes),a reserved woman 20 years his junior. It's a pairing only professionals could manage and a courtship only true dating amateurs could endure! But from their excruciating first date at a geriatric bingo game to an intimate evening that ends with tears, these two hopeful romantics find themselves stumbling head over heels toward love. Their heartfelt and often hilarious attempts make Lonely Hearts an enchanting comedyand a pleasing reminder that even the loneliest of hearts can find its match.
Description of Lonely Hearts:
Director Paul Cox (Innocence) began his winning streak of offbeat pictures and off-center character pieces with this deft 1981 romantic comedy. Norman Kaye is a delight as the 40ish piano tuner with a whimsical streak who meets shy, sheltered single Wendy Hughes, a woman 20 years his junior, through a dating service. This unlikely couple hits it off right away, much to the disapproval of her smothering parents. Cox's deadpan observance of Kaye's wacky pranks is hilarious--Kaye convinces one woman that he's blind, and the confused look on her face as he wobbles back to his car and drives off is alone worth seeing the film. But at heart the movie belongs to the awkward, uncomfortable moments of new relationships that Cox so warmly captures in all their nervous excitement. Cox and Kaye followed this lovely little picture with the even more eccentric Man of Flowers. --Sean Axmaker
Lonely Hearts Reviews:
A funny and poignant love story between two lonely people 
2008-05-07 - Norman Kaye plays Peter, an eccentric single piano tuner who is approaching 50 and has just lost his mother. He turns to a dating service to meet women and is paired up with a lonely back clerk, Patricia [Wendy Hughes] and they hit it off from their first date. These two are so suited to each other despite the age discrepancy [Patricia is much younger than Peter], yet they share many similar interests that keep them connected - music, theatre, even a night of geriatric bingo bonds them. Yet the romance is not without troubles - Patticia is sexually repressed, probably an outcome of being a single child with domineering parents and has only recently broken away from her parents by moving into her own place. Yet, her parents continually try to interfere in her life and drive her up the wall as she strives for normalcy in her love life. She turns to her therapist to sort out her sexual intimacy issues and Peter tries to be patient with her, though without much success.
Ultimately, Lonely Hearts is a story of two lonely, nice people who have spent so much of their lives being good children [Peter towards his mother, and Patricia towards her parents] that they yearn for freedom - to be their own person, with their own lives and to be able to love freely. The two leads are amazing in their performances. Norman Kaye [who also composed the score for the movie] is perfect as the eccentric yet tender-hearted Peter. There is a really funny scene where he pretends to be blind at a client's place, and she escorts him out to the gate, where he promptly gets into his car and drives off! The expression on the client's face was simply priceless! Patricia as played by Wendy Hughes is well-cast as well - her Patricia is emotionally vulnerable with her pain showing through so clearly as to make us very sympathetic towards her character.
This is a beautiful movie that will appeal to those who like a solid drama with humor and poignancy in it. There is never a dull moment in this!
"Lonely Hearts" won the Best Film award from the Australian Film Institute... 
2007-01-07 - While many Australian directors of the '70s and '80s repeatedly turned to period nostalgia, broad satire and Hollywood-derived thrillers, Paul Cox moved on a more personal path, quietly exploring troubled romantic relationships in modern, middle-class suburbia...
After years of making (mostly short) experimental films, Cox attracted the attention of a wider public with "Kostas," a touching account of a Greek-immigrant taxi-driver's love for an Australian divorcée... Invalidated by obviousness in its portrait of class and racial prejudice, it nevertheless paved the way for "Lonely Hearts." Again an engaging romance - this time between a middle-aged piano tuner and a shy and frigid bank clerk, introduced by computer-dating - the film's emotional honesty was heightened by a fine comedy and by a penetrating awareness of repressive parental pressures: exerting their right to live together, the lovers expectedly win their freedom...
Well-made film about ordinary people falling in love 
2006-12-14 - This is a very simple film about two fairly simple people who find that love is never so simple. Norman Kaye plays a 49 year old piano tuner who, following his mother's death, attempts to meet someone through a arranged dating service. He is introduced to a much younger woman, who as a result of domineering parents has come to isolate herself from others and to fear intimacy. The ultimate outcome is fairly predictable (while remaining open-ended in the way of life, and against the grain of standard Hollywood films that like to tie everything up neatly at the end), but the director has chosen to satisfy the basic demands of the romantic comedy while avoiding both cliche and melodrama. The result is a set of fine and subtle performances, and a light and easy style that nevertheless does not shy away from frank depictions of the neuroses that each of us possesses but can rarely face up to, and depicts the inescapably sexual dimension of relationships both directly and with sensitivity, neither aiming to exploit the characters or titillate the audience. In many ways this reminded me of the films of Cassavettes -- though the film feels a bit less epic and overwhelming than most of Cassavettes film, it is slightly more optimistic without being false.
Lonely Hearts
2002-03-11 - I was lucky enough to catch this movie from beginning to end on a local cable station. In the first five minutes of the film, I was so engaged that I could not change the station. I really enjoyed watching this movie. The characters were very funny and realistically human. At the end of this movie, as with any great novel, I wondered what else would happen to the characters. I highly recommend this movie for viewing.
