Two hours too long. Bilge. Not the actors fault. They're doing the best they can with this material.

If you limit your viewing to the scenes with Ryan Philippe/Angelina Jolie ONLY, this is a great film. Try it. Philippe is very affecting and Jolie is completely charming. Philippe can convincingly deliver lines that would get any other actor laughed off-screen. True talent.

This film is so poorly written I think my eyes rolled out of my head, fell to the ground and shriveled into raisins on the tile floor. I’m blind now. This insufferable tripe has blinded me. Unfortunately it didn’t impair my hearing and I had to listen to some of the worst dialog ever conceived dribbling from the faces of some very famous and well respected actors. Their management must have been playing a prank on them. It’s one platitude and cliche after another. Characters who don’t even know each other profess their love after minutes and others reject each other in even less time. None of these people are even a passable facsimile of a human being. No one speaks this way. It feels like it was written by a seventh grader on wide ruled in a Lisa Frank trapper keeper. Boo. Two thumbs down and two middle fingers up.

Great cast but the script is laughingly bad.

This movie was all around sad af . I don’t think i have the heart capacity to be someone that loves this but I could see people being fans 2.4

Even though some plot lines are not as strong, the film stands out for its excellent cast.

1/3/2019 A much younger Angelina Jolie right before her career took off top bills this star-studded romantic comedy (and some little bit of drama). It is the story of four couples and their own little struggles with falling in (and out) of love. It is heartstrings-tugging for the most part, peppered with hilarity. Angelina and Ryan Phillippe are extremely gorgeous here by the way.

A great cast keep this relationship talkie ticking over. It plays out like a play and relies on the chemistry of the characters relationships. Another small role for Gillian Anderson as one of the sisters but a young Angelina Jolie rises above the ensemble cast as the unlucky in love sister.

really liked this good family drama

When you bring out the big guns for your giant 90's romcom acting ensemble: Jay Mohr and Jon Stewart.

"Playing By Heart" is Robert Altman lite, talky, ensemble-driven fare where comedy and romance come easily but not necessarily believably, warmly but not always invitingly. It's faux deep and desperate to be insightful regarding the pains of modern love. The movie is more of an exercise than it is a film, a chance for its sophisticated actors to exchange witty bits and pieces of dialogue and for writer/director Willard Carroll to microphone his talents as someone with an ear for rich, almost musical conversation. It's minor, sure. But it's attractive and easy to engage with, good until rugs are pulled out from under each promising storyline in favor of cringeworthy sentimentality. And considering how many storylines characterize the film, such a factor is displeasing; "Playing By Heart" is delightful before the time comes to wrap things up. Then and there do we have to decide if its last few moments are going to take away from the joys coming previously. In the film, interweaving tales of love in Los Angeles tangle, all well-acted (the cast is scrumptiously starry) but differing in terms of success. Couples range from young to old, happy to depressed, content to empty (but mostly empty) - the most resonant narrative follows Joan (Angelina Jolie) and Keenan (Ryan Phillippe), young club-hoppers who carry loneliness they downplay; Joan is a quirky flibbertigibbet, Keenan a secretive loner. They need each other, the former realizing it much more than her object of affection. Another focuses on Hannah (Gena Rowlands) and Paul (Sean Connery), an old married couple approaching their fortieth wedding anniversary and marital trouble. Paul confesses to have had an affair during the middle years of the union, though he assures his wife that his love for her grew stronger because of it. Right. More of the film, in the meantime, is spent with characters in underdeveloped, or, at worst, uninteresting storylines, those involving couples played by Gillian Anderson and Jon Stewart (in which a burgeoning romance is burdened by irritating distrust on the former's part), and Madeleine Stowe and Anthony Edwards (where parties to an affair begin to reflect on their realities). A particular character (Dennis Quaid), whose relation to these people is revealed later, goes from bar to bar pretending he's someone he isn't; a touching detour revolves around a mother (Ellen Burstyn) dealing with the final days of her AIDS afflicted son (Jay Mohr). How the individuals of "Playing By Heart" are ultimately associated is ingenious enough for us to want to hit ourselves for not guessing the connections earlier. So it's too bad that facts are revealed a while after most of the storylines have defined themselves as being love stories unafraid to climax in made-for-온라인카지노추천 predictability. Carroll spends so much time flashing his writing talents that we expect that this is going to be something akin to a minor Woody Allen classic - why he takes the romance novel way out results in a head-scratch edged out with a little bit of blood. This could have been a subversive romantic comedy classic had he trusted his talents more. He's got the actors to prove it. The cast is unbelievably noteworthy, Angelina Jolie standing out in particular as a twenty-something with a personality so divine and smart you'd swear her character were based on an old flame of Carroll. Bluntly, Joan is the only portion of "Playing By Heart" that doesn't feel playfully phony, Jolie delivering her director's slippery dialogue as if someone would really speak like a Broadway oddity. Why Joan so quickly falls in love with the mostly personality-less Keenan is baffling. She could have had a film all to herself. But as "Playing By Heart" is like "Magnolia" era Paul Thomas Anderson minus the heaviness, the cast is integral, and, here, are well-suited for this sort of material (playing similarly to likable Off-Broadway). They don't disappoint - the film's faults move in the direction of Carroll, who shows compelling talent but isn't as sure of himself as we are of him. "Playing By Heart" is not anything besides breezy, bubbling entertainment with a taste for the saccharine. Whether you're sold by it is up to you.

One of my favorite movies!

I was actually an extra in this movie and other than it having Angelia & Ryan Phillippe, and a bunch of great actors...? The movie itself really is NOT Good :( Oh wait! Some of the dialogue is really awesome, overly pedantic..? But awesome :)

Best part about this movie is the font on the credits. Definitely a Chick-flick that has not aged gracefully.

I'ts one of those typical cases in which the movie is better recieved by the audience than the criticts. I'm glad to see that me, as part of the audience, I share my peer's view. It's always nice to see Sean Connery.

A warm and moving film about all the forms of love and the heartbreak and happiness love can bring. A great cast tell divergent love stories that all come together in the end.

Still prob one of the best and truest to life ensemble films of the early 2000's about dating and top 5 on the Jolie movie scale (also top five on the "I've dated her" scale).

Finding love in modern days L.A isn't an easy thing. Reuniting a stellar cast Carooll directs this comedy with obvious passion for it's subject & a great deal of communicative energy. It's not a masterpiece but it's nice to watch it once.

My 2nd favorite romantic comedy, after Moonstruck.

A delightful little film with an A-list roster of stars and a convoluted tale of relationships, beginning and ending and at a crossroads. I found myself caring about these characters, every one of them damaged goods in some way, but all of them looking for someone to love and to be loved by. A little bit schmaltzy at times, but its heart is in the right place and I dug it.