PipsHeritage Review of Loved

Loved (1997)

Great movie, if you understand what it tries to say...

[8/10 · 15 August 2005]

It's a very good movie, if you are intelligent enough to get the point. If you are quite shallow, you will be bored by it (but then a lot of people who are used to todays (too) high-pased movies are easily bored). It tries to say that in a destructive relationship it takes 'two to tango'. The abused person almost agrees with the abuse if she (or he) doesn't guard her/his own boundaries and draws a line. Sometimes - and it seems strange - people feel safe in that kind of a relationship, because it's the only kind of love they know (if they have been abused by their parents f.i.). It's very brave of the character of Robin Wright Penn to not only point the finger at her abusive ex-boyfriend, but also holds herself responsible for how she let herself be treated. She needed the intensity to FEEL, like (she thought) that love can only be love when it hurts. But the intensity had a destructive outcome for her mental health in the end, it drained her, wore her out... and her recovery took a long, long time... and still... About the hesitating attraction between William Hurt's character and Robin Wright Penn's character: it's a very delicate and realistic observation how two people, who both have a hard time trusting someone again, slowly open their hearts to each other. I think it's very moving to witness that. And Sean Penn's small cameo (as someone from probably a nearby mental health institution who has become victimized by, I think, a too intense relationship) is excellent; his lines are an intro of the story which we are about to see. A brave story with a controversial look at things.