As I watched "Playing by Heart", I found myself quite frustrated by the film. It consisted of many different stories about love...I felt too many. I sat there wishing the film had instead just focused on one...or perhaps two. After all, the stories were interesting and the acting quite formidable....but each story was interrupted repeatedly and each story was woven into a bigger tale. However, as the film progressed, I found myself not minding its structure...which was a lot like a later film, "Love Actually".

Instead of discussing each of the love stories, I'd rather just say that each sucked me in...a few, more than others. And, the acting was exceptional...and had me on the verge of tears several times. Overall, it's a lovely film....and one I cannot understand how it received two thumbs down from Siskel and Ebert....that I just find confusing because there's so much to like here.

By the way, there was one thing I really did NOT like and that the DVD had no captions of any sort. It's a shame as I am a bit hard of hearing and really had to struggle to hear some of the dialog...particular at the night club sequences.

A slick tapestry of not-so-disparate lives touched by love and death. Willard Carroll writes just like he directs: for immediate impact only, without regard to the characters he's spotlighting in a scene or to what follows dramatically thereafter. He panders to an audience's base emotions, which sometimes leaves his follow-through seeming empty or halfhearted. After losing her son to AIDS, grieving Ellen Burstyn is invited to a neighbor's celebration, where she is greeted warmly and then forgotten about. Dennis Quaid improvises a phony life story to an all-seeing, all-knowing drag queen, who calls Quaid out on his lie and then disappears. Carroll isn't interested in his smartest creations--he's mainly after warm hugs and kisses (which we are flooded with near the end). Some may see the writer-director's proverbial third-act ribbon-wrapping as clever and uncanny, but nothing is really accomplished by crisscrossing the paths of these people...it's simply a writer's folly. Aside from the touching Burstyn story, it doesn't wash. ** from ****

Writer/director Willard Carroll, the director of "Playing by Heart", has constructed a multi storied film where different narratives are seen completely without any idea how they are connected until the end. This device has been employed by other directors, notably, Robert Altman. Whereas Mr. Altman interconnects his scenes differently, Mr. Carroll, keeps the stories separate, only to have them come together at the end.

The director was exceptionally lucky in amassing this talented cast to appear in his film. Viewers of all ages will identify with the different stories since they resonate with different age groups. Most comments submitted to IMDb seem to be from young viewers who think the best thing in the movie are Joan and Keenan. While this couple do a good job, there are other good moments involving some of the other couples we see in the film.

Sean Connery and Gena Rowlands make an excellent couple. Angelina Jolie and Ryan Phillippe do also good work in the film. But Madeleine Stowe and Gillian Anderson have more interesting characters. Same could be said about Dennis Quaid, who makes a mark as Hugh, the tormented man who discovers his wife's infidelity. Anthony Edwards, Ellen Burstyn, Jay Mohr, and a surprising Jon Stewart are among the actors seen in minor roles.

The film will delight audiences because the film catches one's imagination from the beginning.