''Hearts and Bones'' is a 2019 Australian

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed and co-written by Ben Lawrence. The film follows a war photographer and a refugee. It stars

Hugo Weaving Hugo Wallace Weaving (born 4 April 1960) is an English actor. Born in Colonial Nigeria to English parents, he has resided in Australia for the entirety of his career. He is the recipient of six AACTA Awards, Australian Academy of Cinema and Tel ...

Andrew Luri Andrew Luri is a Sudanese-Australian actor. He made his acting debut in the film ''Hearts and Bones'' (2019), for which he was nominated for an AACTA Award. Life Luri migrated from South Sudan to Australia on a humanitarian visa Humanitarian vi ...

Hayley McElhinney Hayley McElhinney (born 12 September 1974) is an Australian stage, film and television actress. Graduating from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in 1999, McElhinney has performed around Australia and in the United States with t ...

and Bolude Watson.

Cast

- Dan Fisher *

- Sebastian Ahmed *

- Josie Avril * Bolude Watson - Anishka Ahmed

Release

''Hearts and Bones'' was shown at a number of

film festivals A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upon ...

in 2019, after which the film was originally slated for an April 2020 release into Australian cinemas. The April wide-release was cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, which forced the shutdown of the nation's cinemas. Instead of delaying the theatrical release, the film opted instead to release directly onto digital platforms on May 6, 2020. The home-video release was planned for June 3, 2020.

Critical response

On review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, ''Hearts and Bones'' has approval rating, based on reviews The site's critical consensus reads, "''Hearts and Bones'' is more powerful in concept than execution, although strong work from a deftly assembled cast adds much-needed heft." Variety's Eddie Cockrell called it "an impressive narrative feature debut". Harry Windsor from the Hollywood Reporter gave his bottom line as "A drama about good intentions that pulls up just short of the abyss." Sarah Ward from Screen Daily wrote "An intimate film tackling an expansive subject — the treatment of refugees around the globe, and the way the world processes the traumas that lead to such urgent, widespread immigration — this is a poignant and morally complex drama".

Accolades

Members of the cast received three nominations at the

9th AACTA Awards The 9th Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards (generally known as the AACTA Awards) is an award's ceremony to celebrate the best of Australian films and television of 2019. The main ceremony was held at The Star (Sydney), The St ...

was nominated for

Best Actor Best Actor is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organizations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actors in a film, television series, television film or play. The term most often refers to th ...

for Best Supporting Actor, and Bolude Watson for Best Supporting Actress.

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 8689644 2019 films 2019 drama films Australian drama films Films not released in theaters due to the COVID-19 pandemic 2010s English-language films