A strange one, this. Directed by Tom Tykwer (responsible for Run Lola Run and The Princes and the Warrior), Heaven tells the story of Phillippa (Blanchett) who makes an ill-fated attempt to kill the man that she believes was responsible for the death of her husband. Although her plan is unsuccessful and she ends up in police custody, Phillippa finds herself irrevocably attracted to a young police man called Filippo (Ribsi). Realising that he, too, is falling in love, Filippo helps Phillippa escape and they go on the run together. Although he didn't write the screenplay (the late great Krzysztof Kieslowski was responsible for early drafts), Tykwer's thematic obsessions with chance, fate and coincidence are all very evident in Heaven. The premise may suggest otherwise, but little about Heaven is conventional or straightforward (indeed, if anything, Tykwer seems intent on avoiding all manner of convention with this curious film). That in itself is hardly a bad thing, but the director is far too ambitious with the material he has at hand, and by the final third, Heaven is lost in a muddle of strange metaphors, when a stronger plot would have worked far better.
