by MATTHEW HAYS

Heaven is an odd film, for a number of reasons. For one, it feels a bit like Spielberg’s A.I., a film that had been conceived by Kubrick before his death and then carried to fruition by the former director. Here, celebrated German filmmaker Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, The Princess and the Warrior) has taken the last script (only nearly completed) by the late Krzysztof Kieslowski (with his writing partner Krzysztof Piesiewicz) and made Heaven.

Tykwer and Kieslowski certainly seem a better auteurial fit than Spielberg and Kubrick did, with the fate theme hanging heavily over the proceedings. Cate Blanchett, who is typically excellent in this role, plays a young woman caught up in a plot to knock off a corporate type for his capitalist misdeeds. Sadly, she misses her mark—while he’s stepped out of the office, some children and a cleaning lady take the bomb blast very badly, dying quick but untimely deaths.

Blanchett is arrested and told of the consequences of her crime. Entirely devastated, she tells her police interrogators that she’ll accept any punishment they want to dish out, even though her murders were inadvertent.

One of her guards, played by Giovanni Ribisi, senses that Blanchett is in fact a good person caught up in the perils of bad circumstances and unintended actions. He helps her escape and the two both end up on the lam.

Heaven is a tremendously bitter film, one that hands us a romance we can hardly savour, knowing these two will almost certainly not make it. What’s intriguing is how the film has been handed another layer of emphasis by current events. The buzzword and concept that is terrorism has morphed considerably since Kieslowski’s death; Blanchett seems to have subtly incorporated these ideas into her performance, a brilliant turn that suggests regret and the potential for redemption. Her appearance alone makes Heaven worth seeing. :

Heaven opens Friday, Oct. 18

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