Heavy (film)
Encyclopedia
Heavy is a 1995 independent
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...

 American drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 written and directed by James Mangold
James Mangold
James Allen Mangold is an American film director and screenwriter. He is perhaps best known for Walk the Line which he co-wrote and directed.-Life and career:...

, and starring Liv Tyler
Liv Tyler
Liv Rundgren Tyler is an American actress and model. She is the daughter of Aerosmith's lead singer, Steven Tyler, and Bebe Buell, model and singer. Tyler began a career in modeling at the age of 14, but after less than a year she decided to focus on acting. She made her film debut in the 1994...

, Pruitt Taylor Vince
Pruitt Taylor Vince
Pruitt Taylor Vince is an American award-winning character actor who has made many appearances in film and television.-Personal life:Vince was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana...

, Shelley Winters
Shelley Winters
Shelley Winters was an American actress who appeared in dozens of films, as well as on stage and television; her career spanned over 50 years until her death in 2006...

, and Deborah Harry
Debbie Harry
Deborah Ann "Debbie" Harry is an American singer-songwriter and actress, best known for being the lead singer of the punk rock and new wave band Blondie. She has also had success as a solo artist, and in the mid-1990s she performed and recorded as part of The Jazz Passengers...

. The plot focuses on an overweight man in his mid-30s (Vince) whose life is forever changed after an enchanting college-aged girl (Tyler) attains a waitress job at a roadside diner where he is employed by his mother (Winters). The film explores themes of loneliness
Loneliness
Loneliness is an unpleasant feeling in which a person feels a strong sense of emptiness and solitude resulting from inadequate levels of social relationships. However, it is a subjective experience...

, false hope, unrequited love
Unrequited love
Unrequited love is love that is not openly reciprocated or understood as such, even though reciprocation is usually deeply desired. The beloved may or may not be aware of the admirer's deep affections...

, and the problematic nature of self worth
Self Worth
"Self Worth" is the title of a 1999 single by hardcore punk band Better Than a Thousand. The first two tracks of this single are taken from the Value Driven album, the third was previously unreleased....

.

The film was Mangold's directorial debut, and featured an original soundtrack by Thurston Moore
Thurston Moore
Thurston Joseph Moore is an American musician best known as a singer, songwriter and guitarist of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside of Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label...

 of Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...

. Filming took place on location in and around Barryville, New York
Barryville, New York
Barryville is a hamlet in Highland, Sullivan County, New York. It is named for William T. Barry, postmaster general under President Andrew Jackson. The community grew up around the D&H Canal, which opened in 1828 and operated until 1898...

, Highland Lake, New York; and Hyde Park, New York
Hyde Park, New York
Hyde Park is a town located in the northwest part of Dutchess County, New York, United States, just north of the city of Poughkeepsie. The town is most famous for being the hometown of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt....

; some scenes were filmed at the Culinary Institute of America
Culinary Institute of America
The Culinary Institute of America is a non-profit culinary college located in Hyde Park USA, founded in 1946. The CIA also has branch campuses in St. Helena, California, and San Antonio, Texas, as well as a campus in Singapore. It is a not-for-profit academic institution of higher learning...

.

Heavy premiered at the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...

 and was later screened at Cannes
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...

 before receiving major theatrical releases. It was first released in the United Kingdom on December 29, 1995, and later in the United States on June 5, 1996. It has since had several home video releases, including two DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 releases which are both currently out of production
Out of print
Out of print refers to an item, typically a book , but can include any print or visual media or sound recording, that is in the state of no longer being published....

.

Plot

The film begins at "Pete and Dolly's", a small roadside diner
Diner
A diner, also spelled dinor in western Pennsylvania is a prefabricated restaurant building characteristic of North America, especially in the Midwest, in New York City, in Pennsylvania and in New Jersey, and in other areas of the Northeastern United States, although examples can be found throughout...

/tavern
Tavern
A tavern is a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food, and in some cases, where travelers receive lodging....

 in sleepy upstate New York
Upstate New York
Upstate New York is the region of the U.S. state of New York that is located north of the core of the New York metropolitan area.-Definition:There is no clear or official boundary between Upstate New York and Downstate New York...

, where thirty-something-year-old Victor (Pruitt Taylor Vince) works as a cook under the employment of his mother, Dolly (Shelley Winters), the owner of the restaurant. Dolly spends most of her time sitting in a chair in the back of the kitchen, reminiscing of her late husband and prodding promiscuous waitress Delores (Deborah Harry), a lonely woman who has worked at the restaurant for fifteen years, and also had a meaningless affair
Affair
Affair may refer to professional, personal, or public business matters or to a particular business or private activity of a temporary duration, as in family affair, a private affair, or a romantic affair.-Political affair:...

 with Dolly's husband.

But the same old routine and rhythm of the restaurant is changed when Dolly hires a new waitress, Callie (Liv Tyler); she is sweet, soft-spoken, and enchantingly beautiful; a college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...

 drop out
Dropping out
Dropping out means leaving a group for either practical reasons, necessities or disillusionment with the system from which the individual in question leaves....

, but nonetheless an ethereal creature that immediately catches the eye of the painfully shy, overweight
Overweight
Overweight is generally defined as having more body fat than is optimally healthy. Being overweight is a common condition, especially where food supplies are plentiful and lifestyles are sedentary...

 Victor. Callie's presence in the diner complicates the lives of the rest of the employees, and even some of the local regulars, such as Leo (Joe Grifasi), an alcoholic friend of Delores and long-time customer of Dolly.

Throughout the film, Victor, who is so shy he can hardly communicate with the goodhearted Callie, develops a growing crush on her, despite her already having a boyfriend of her own age whom she lives with. Callie suggests Victor attend the "fancy" cooking school across the river, a thought which is considered by Victor but dismissed by his mother and Delores. Victor subtly vies for Callie's attention, but her feelings for him are of a platonic
Platonic love
Platonic love is a chaste and strong type of love that is non-sexual.-Amor Platonicus:The term amor platonicus was coined as early as the 15th century by the Florentine scholar Marsilio Ficino. Platonic love in this original sense of the term is examined in Plato's dialogue the Symposium, which has...

 nature; nonetheless, she finds companionship in him.

Meanwhile, Dolly depends on Victor greatly, as he still lives at home with her, doing all the household work and shopping; eventually, however, Dolly's health begins to decline, and she dies after being taken to the hospital after suffering a heart attack. Victor fails to tell anyone at the restaurant of his mother's death, in the fear that it would "change things". Eventually, the news comes out, and Callie is prompted to quit her job at the restaurant.

Victor's issues of self-esteem
Self-esteem
Self-esteem is a term in psychology to reflect a person's overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs and emotions such as triumph, despair, pride and shame: some would distinguish how 'the self-concept is what we think about the self; self-esteem, the...

, stemming from his weight and the revelation of his mother's death come to surface one night at the restaurant, and Callie comes in after closing to collect her check and say goodbye to the disheveled Victor; he asks for her to come and visit occasionally, and she agrees- she plans on going back home and returning to college. The film ends with an ever-slightly more confident Victor at the local grocery mart, making small talk with a female cashier who appeared throughout the film.

Cast

  • Pruitt Taylor Vince
    Pruitt Taylor Vince
    Pruitt Taylor Vince is an American award-winning character actor who has made many appearances in film and television.-Personal life:Vince was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana...

     as Victor Modino
  • Shelley Winters
    Shelley Winters
    Shelley Winters was an American actress who appeared in dozens of films, as well as on stage and television; her career spanned over 50 years until her death in 2006...

     as Dolly Modino
  • Liv Tyler
    Liv Tyler
    Liv Rundgren Tyler is an American actress and model. She is the daughter of Aerosmith's lead singer, Steven Tyler, and Bebe Buell, model and singer. Tyler began a career in modeling at the age of 14, but after less than a year she decided to focus on acting. She made her film debut in the 1994...

     as Callie
  • Deborah Harry as Delores (as Debbie Harry)
  • Joe Grifasi
    Joe Grifasi
    Joseph G. "Joe" Grifasi is an American character actor of film, stage and television.Grifasi was born in Buffalo, New York, the son of Patricia and Joseph J. Grifasi, a skilled laborer. Grifasi graduated from Bishop Fallon High School, a now defunct Catholic high school in Buffalo. He played...

     as Leo
  • Evan Dando
    Evan Dando
    Evan Griffith Dando is an American musician, most famous for fronting the alternative rock band The Lemonheads. He is the only original member left in the current Lemonheads line-up, having served as lead singer since the band's original formation in 1986...

     as Jeff
  • David Patrick Kelly
    David Patrick Kelly
    David Patrick Kelly is an American actor and musician who has appeared in numerous films, including some major roles.-Career:...

     as Grey Man in the Hospital
  • Marian Quinn as Darlene

  • Meg Hartig as Donna
  • Zandy Hartig as Jean
  • Peter Ortel as Tony
  • George Alvarez as Orderly
  • Cordis Heard as Nurse
  • J.C. MacKenzie as Gas Man
  • Allen D'Arcangelo as Sonny


Production

Heavy was director James Mangold's directorial debut, as well as his first screenplay. According to Mangold, who grew up in the Hudson River Valley, he was inspired by a real-life classmate of his who was overweight, and whose mother owned a local diner; like in the film, the father had died, leaving the mother and son to run the restaurant themselves.

Mangold wrote the script for the film in 1991, while attending filmmaking seminars at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 under the instruction of director Miloš Forman
Miloš Forman
Jan Tomáš Forman , better known as Miloš Forman , is a Czech-American director, screenwriter, professor, and an emigrant from Czechoslovakia. Two of his films, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus, are among the most celebrated in the history of film, both gaining him the Academy Award for...

. In making the movie, Mangold was very focused on expression versus dialogue, especially in the character of Victor; Mangold stated that he was striving to create a "silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

, with sound".

Casting

Mangold met Liv Tyler when she was sixteen years old; Tyler had little to no acting history, but expressed great interest in it. She had been doing modeling
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....

 work at the time, and was cast in the film "without hesitation" after a brief video audition with Mangold. Through Tyler, Mangold got in touch with Deborah Harry, who was well-acquainted with young Tyler through the "rock and roll" scene in New York (Tyler being the daughter of Aerosmith
Aerosmith
Aerosmith is an American rock band, sometimes referred to as "The Bad Boys from Boston" and "America's Greatest Rock and Roll Band". Their style, which is rooted in blues-based hard rock, has come to also incorporate elements of pop, heavy metal, and rhythm and blues, and has inspired many...

 front-man Steven Tyler
Steven Tyler
Steven Tyler is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, best known as the frontman and lead singer of the Boston-based rock band Aerosmith, in which he also plays the harmonica, and occasional piano and percussion. He is known as the "Demon of Screamin'", due to his high screams...

); this resulted in Harry's casting as the part of the weathered, back-mouthing Delores. Evan Dando of The Lemonheads
The Lemonheads
The Lemonheads are an American alternative rock band first formed in 1986 by Evan Dando, Ben Deily and Jesse Peretz. Dando has remained the band's only constant member....

 was cast as Tyler's guitarist boyfriend because of Mangold's admiration for his music, and in hope of bringing some star attention to the low-budget production.

In casting the part of Dolly, Mangold sought golden age Hollywood
Classical Hollywood cinema
Classical Hollywood cinema or the classical Hollywood narrative, are terms used in film history which designates both a visual and sound style for making motion pictures and a mode of production used in the American film industry between roughly the 1910s and the early 1960s.Classical style is...

 actress Shelley Winters, who was in her mid-70s at the time. Mangold tracked down her address to her Manhattan apartment, and sent her the film's script along with a letter stating his admiration of her work. Within two days, Winters returned Mangold's contact and was subsequently cast.

The last person to be cast was Pruitt Taylor Vince, as Mangold had been having trouble finding an actor to portray the "centerpiece" character. An associate producer/friend of Mangold, who had been shooting Nobody's Fool (1994) with Vince alongside Paul Newman
Paul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...

, suggested him. After Vince was cast, Mangold and the crew began feeding Vince doughnuts and Kentucky Fried Chicken in order for the actor, who was not remarkably overweight at the time, to rapidly gain weight before filming commenced.

Release

The film was reportedly given a theatrical release in the United States after Liv Tyler's critical recognition in Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci is an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor and The Dreamers...

's Stealing Beauty
Stealing Beauty
Stealing Beauty is a 1996 drama film directed by Academy Award-winning Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci and written by Bertolucci and Susan Minot. It stars Liv Tyler, D.W. Moffett, Jeremy Irons, and Rachel Weisz...

(1996). Eighteen months after the film premiered to jury-winning accolades at the Sundance Film Festival (and over two years after it was originally filmed), Heavy was released theatrically in the United States in June 1996; it had been released prior in the United Kingdom in late December 1995.

Critical reception

Following the film's success at Sundance, it garnered generally positive reviews. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, and remarked the film's sense of realism in its characters and settings: "You've been in places like this. You linger over a second cup of coffee and people-watch, trying to guess the secrets of the sad-eyed waitress and the drunk at the bar and the pizza cook who looks like he's serving a sentence. You don't guess the true horror of the place, which is that there are no secrets, because everyone here knows all about everyone else, inside and out, top to bottom, and has for years." (A decade later, Ebert—reviewing Mangold's 2007 remake of 3:10 to Yuma -- called Heavy "extraordinary".)

Critic James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli is an American online film critic.-Personal life:Berardinelli was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey and spent his early childhood in Morristown, New Jersey. At the age of nine years, he relocated to the township of Cherry Hill, New Jersey...

 said of the film, "Mangold captures the nuances of life perfectly, and, by never cheapening his vision through facile resolutions, he fashions a memorable cinematic portrait.", while Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

called the film "a small, quiet miracle of a movie in which tenderness, compassion and insight combine to create a tension that yields a quality of perception that's almost painful to experience." Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Gate called the film "an act of faith in itself -- an argument for the kind of subtle, humanistic traces that used to be familiar on screen but somehow became all too scarce."; Barbara Shulgasser, also of the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...

, said: "There is nothing cutesy or gimmicky about Heavy, which may be why something in its grimness recalls the work of Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. Described by Woody Allen as "probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera", he is recognized as one of the most accomplished and...

."

The internet film review aggregator
Review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services . This system stores the reviews and then uses them for purposes such as: creating a website for users to view the reviews, selling information to third parties about consumer tendencies and creating databases for...

 Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

, as of 2010, has the film ranked at 86% fresh (or positive), with 24/28 reviews being in favor of the film.

Awards

Director James Mangold won "Best Screenplay" and Grand Prix Asturias "Best Feature" at the Gijón International Film Festival
Gijón International Film Festival
Gijón International Film Festival was created in 1963. It was born as an initiative of the local authority and it was sponsored mainly by Gijón City Council and the then Caja de Ahorros de Asturias ; both institutions are still the main organisers of the festival, along with funding from the...

, and the Special Jury Prize for Directing at the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...

.

Soundtrack Information

The soundtrack of the movie featured instrumental compositions by Thurston Moore
Thurston Moore
Thurston Joseph Moore is an American musician best known as a singer, songwriter and guitarist of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside of Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label...

 among other songs, including The Connells
The Connells
The Connells are an American band from Raleigh, North Carolina. They play a guitar-oriented, melodic, power pop style of rock music with introspective lyrics that reflect the American South. Though mostly dormant, the band continues to play to this day...

' hit "'74 - '75
'74 - '75
"74–'75" is a 1993 single from the album Ring by the American band The Connells. The song became a big hit in Europe, particularly in Sweden and Norway where it topped the singles charts in 1995.- Music video :...

".

External links

  • Original theatrical trailer for Heavy at YouTube
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