''The Violent Heart'' is a 2020 American

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 ...

written and directed by Kerem Sanga. It stars

Jovan Adepo Jovan Adepo (born September 6, 1988) is a British-American actor. He is known for his role as Cory Maxson in the film adaptation of ''Fences'' (2016), and also had starring roles in the 2018 film ''Overlord'' and as Lionel Jefferson in CBS' '' ...

Grace Van Patten Grace Van Patten (born November 21, 1996) is an American actress. She has appeared in two films distributed by Netflix: '' Tramps'' (2016) and ''The Meyerowitz Stories'' (2017), and in Hulu's miniseries ''Nine Perfect Strangers'' (2021) and '' T ...

Lukas Haas Lukas Daniel Haas (born April 16, 1976) is an American actor and musician. His acting career has spanned four decades, during which he has appeared in more than 50 feature films and a number of television shows and stage productions. Early life ...

Kimberly Williams-Paisley Kimberly Payne Williams-Paisley (née Williams; born September 14, 1971) is an American actress known for her co-starring roles on ''According to Jim'' and '' Nashville,'' as well as her breakthrough performance in '' Father of the Bride'' (199 ...

Cress Williams Cress Williams (born July 26, 1970) is an American actor, known for his roles in ''Prison Break'' and '' Close to Home''. His most recent roles include Mayor Lavon Hayes on The CW series ''Hart of Dixie'' and the title character on The CW's ''Bla ...

, Jahi Di'Allo Winston, and

Mary J. Blige Mary Jane Blige ( ; born January 11, 1971) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Often referred to as the " Queen of Hip-Hop Soul" and " Queen of R&B", Blige has won nine Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, four American Music Award ...

. The film premiered at the

Deauville Film Festival The Deauville American Film Festival (french: Festival du cinéma américain de Deauville, link=no) is a yearly film festival devoted to American cinema, which has taken place since 1975 in Deauville, France. It was established by Lionel Cho ...

on September 9, 2020, and was released on February 19, 2021 by

Gravitas Ventures Gravitas Ventures is an independent film distribution company owned by Anthem Sports and Entertainment. The company was founded by Nolan Gallagher in Los Angeles, California in 2006 and moved its headquarters to Cleveland, Ohio in 2019, where it f ...

Plot

Fifteen years after the mysterious murder of his older sister Wendy, Daniel is striving to become a mechanical engineer for the Marines. He witnessed the murder of his sister, and so struggles to live a normal life with the memories he has. Daniel meets Cassie, a witty and loquacious young girl, who attends a local high school, when she has to stop by the auto shop for an oil change at her dad's request. Leaving the car behind, she asks Daniel to take her to the high school that his brothers attend. Cassie tells Daniel about her father and speaks highly of him, but she and Daniel discover that Cassie's father is having an affair with a teacher at the school. Because of this, Cassie becomes estranged from her family and spends more time with Daniel, and the two begin to realise they have connections from the past.

Cast

In addition, Jordan Preston Carter briefly appears as a young Daniel witnessing his sister's murder.

Production

Kerem Sanga directed the film based on a screenplay he wrote, and brought on

Shawn Levy Shawn Adam Levy (born July 23, 1968) is a Canadian film director, film producer, actor, and founder of 21 Laps Entertainment. He has worked across genres and is perhaps best known as the director of the '' Night at the Museum'' film franchise an ...

, Dan Cohen, Ed McDonnell and

Tobey Maguire Tobias Vincent Maguire (born June 27, 1975) is an American actor and film producer. He is best known for playing Peter Parker (Sam Raimi film series), the title character from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man in film#Sam Raimi films, ''Spider-Man'' tril ...

to serve as producers under their

21 Laps Entertainment 21 Laps Entertainment is an American film and television production company founded and run by director-producer Shawn Levy. The company is best known as the producers of ''Stranger Things'', and exclusively distributes content through a partner ...

, 3311 Productions and Material Pictures banners, respectively. In December 2017,

and

were cast, and

, Jahi Di'Allo Winston and

joined the cast in January 2019. In February 2019,

also joined the cast.

Filming

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as actor ...

began in February 2019.

Release

''The Violent Heart'' had its world premiere at the

on September 9, 2020. It was originally set to have its world premiere at the

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...

in April 2020, however, the festival 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 ...

. In December 2020,

acquired distribution rights to the film, and set it for a February 19, 2021 release.

Reception

''The Violent Heart'' holds approval rating on

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

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 ...

, based on reviews, with an average of . On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film holds a rating of 49 out of 100 based on 9 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Violent Heart, The Films postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic American drama films Films shot in Texas 21 Laps Entertainment films Films produced by Tobey Maguire Films produced by Shawn Levy 2020 films 2020 drama films 2020s English-language films 2020s American films