Into My Heart (review)

Or, When Bad Things Happen to Rich People. Children of East Coast privilege, cynical Ben (Rob Morrow) and idealistic Adam (Jake Weber: U-571) are life-long friends, having endured the horrors of New England summers, Fifth Avenue winters, and an Ivy League education. But when Ben finds himself suddenly drawn to Adam's coolly distant wife, Nina (Claire Forlani: Meet Joe Black), can anything but improbably articulate male angst be in the offing? Cowriters/codirectors Sean Smith and Anthony Stark's self-indulgent, hopelessly earnest melodrama acts as if Adam's resultant broken heart is the first one in history, and his reaction to his wife's betrayal is so outrageously inappropriate that it inspires giggles of derision. And though the film wants to be about the divide between what we think, hypothetically, we'd never do -- like sleep with your best friend's spouse -- and how we deal with moral ambiguity when we actually find ourselves in such a situation, it avoids any kind of overt or covert exploration of the subject, opting for plodding, leaden soap opera instead. Sitting through Into My Heart is like being aggressively cornered at a party by a total stranger who pours out his personal sob story after you casually nod and say, "Howzit goin'?"