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Tragedy is a part of life, and humanity has struggled with it for as long as we’ve been able to realize it. Naturally some tragic moments in particular are worse, like the death and pain of the young and innocent, and trying to understand and comprehend the ‘why’ seems an impossible task. Plenty of pop culture is about trying to grapple with the fact that we cannot prevent all tragedy, but it’s a tricky tightrope to cross — it’s easy to fall into escapism or nihilism.
2 Hearts comes from director Lance Hool in his first movie in twenty years, and is written by Veronica Hool and Robin U. Russin. The movie tells two parallel stories about two people, based on a real life event. We start the movie as young Chris (Jacob Elordi) is being sped, unconscious and on a gurney, into the emergency room as his parents and some girl (we can guess is a girlfriend — her name we later learn is Sam, played by Tiera Skovbye) wait.
Chris narrates the movie, trying for insight and wisdom but it usually feels more along the line of platitudes and cheap greeting card phrases. It’s pretty clear as we see Chris going into the hospital that it’s connected to the next man, Jorge (Adan Canto), an older Cuban man with a serious medical condition. The movie switches back and forth between telling some stories of the two men, although Jorge’s starts a while earlier in Cuba, where he is called literally ‘Cuban royalty’.
On a plane to Cuba, Jorge flirts with and connects with a flight attendant named Leslie (Radha Mitchell), asking to hold his hand as he has difficulty breathing. The movie tries to tell us a bit of the lives of both these people, whom we know will inevitably be connected in tragedy, but the script isn’t structured in anything more than a ‘this happened then this happened’ style.
Jorge seems to have more going on, but it’s mainly about his slow romance with Leslie, whom he never tells about his very serious medical issues. They have a decent sort of chemistry, but the story they have is pretty forgettable (meaning I have trouble remembering it), but the movie doesn’t do much better with Chris.
We see a similar concept with Chris, a focus on his meeting this girl Sam at college as he immediately tries to flirt with her in a fairly aggressive way, throwing off a lot of energy to make him seem likable. Ultimately, Chris’ story isn’t as interesting, partially because he seemed to be a relatively normal kid, but his chemistry with Sam isn’t that evident, so the movie makes it seem like they fall in love way too quickly to be believed. The movie also struggles with the difference between lovable confident energy and ‘really, take it down a notch dude’ energy.
When tragedy does strike, the movie tries to have it both ways, giving us a ‘it happened and we don’t know why’ to a potential ‘maybe he was meant to save this other guy’s life’. That’s a dangerous thing to ponder, but the movie doesn’t really think much about it — the thing is, this is all stuff that actually happened, more or less, and not that long ago, so dramatizing it more might seem inappropriate. Is it a comfort to those we lose to think that something good might come of it? Sometimes, but it’s usually the case that we simply would’ve preferred not to have the tragedy in the first place.
I understand what the movie is trying to do here — it’s trying to give some comfort and context to a terrible tragedy, but the clunky narration (where Chris speaks way differently than his character is written) doesn’t help anything. I hope that those affected by similar tragedies might find some solace in this, but otherwise if doesn’t really manage to pull off what it’s trying to do.
2 Hearts has a run time of 1 hour 40 minutes and is rated PG-13 for brief strong language.
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