A gentle road movie, Heartlands may not win too many kudos for originality, but Damien O Donnell's first major movie since East is East is certainly not short of compassion or feeling. Sporting a bubble perm that wouldn't look out of place on an episode of Brookside, Michael Sheen plays Colin. So enamoured is he with his wife Sandra (Robbins) and the game of darts that he can't see she is playing around behind his back with his pub team's captain, Geoff (Carter). When Colin finally discovers Sandra's infidelity, she leaves him and heads off to Blackpool with her new beau. Determined to win his missus back, Colin sets off on his moped to catch up with her. Over the course of his journey, however, Colin comes to realise that the world outside his (dis)ordered existence is not quite how he imagined It.
Comparisons between Damien O'Donnell and David Lynch may seem a trifle strange but the latter's The Straight Story is one of Heartlands' closet relatives. Quietly effective, Heartlands might not have an awful lot of originality and the characters' motivations may occasionally verge on the banal, but O'Donnell has inexplicably managed to avoid the most dehabilitating cliches and fashioned a modest but enjoyable affair.