source: Three of Hearts

I can always appreciate a good romantic comedy from the 90s, where people wore waist-high jeans with their shirts tucked in and over-sized leather jackets, not short of borrowing running shoes from the late 80s to complete the signature look. Men still slicked their hair back for that special date but weren't afraid to part a neat fringe in the middle on separate occasions, as if opening the curtains to the windows of their souls. A little (a lot) dramatic? This would eventually pave the way to a defining characteristic of the 90s, an era of overpopulated boy-bands pleading with girls around the world to quit playing games with their hearts - men who weren't afraid to let their hair down (so to speak), and ditch the mullet for some added empathy. Women on the other hand, quite simply put, were "doing it for themselves". Married or single, women had more freedom to play with at this point than ever before, and were slowly but surely climbing the corporate ladder with a newfound sense of value and independence. Dresses shared cupboard space with mini-dresses, denim overalls and crop-tops. Sexy met its match in the mini-skirt while plaid in general became crucial and defining. How the above ties in with 'Three of Hearts' begins with mainstream America's slow but evident growing stages of acceptance of gay and lesbian relationships in the early 90s. Although centred around the recent ending of a lesbian relationship, we never see any girl-on-girl action but that's okay because the relationship itself is successfully conveyed as being something very special and the essence is captured well. The acting was good and the humour not overly done like some 90s comedies and kids films like to do, but just a few things are left to questioning for me: 1) By omitting detail as to why Ellen broke up with Connie (other than "needing space"), I'm left wondering who to sympathise with more. 2) Is Connie intentionally trying to show Joe up with the plagiarised story issue and if not, how can she be so obviously obsessed with someone but not suspect Ellen to recognise the story when she is an expert in this field of literature, enough of an expert to lecture it to out-of-school-students? 3) Is it just about Ellen's classically modern beauty that makes Joe "want to be a better man?" and fall in love with her so suddenly because if it is, fair enough but if not, I cannot pinpoint exactly where the interest lies since Ellen doesn't do anything particularly spectacular to warrant such admiration from Joe so soon. In fact, I feel like Ellen's contribution to the story was far too underplayed and detached. This has nothing to do with Sherilyn though, who is beautiful enough to steal from the fact she is a great actress herself. 4) Who knew William Baldwin used to be so good looking?! (R must have mentioned it a dozen times and I agree!). The ending, I found to be weird. Again Connie seems so sure of herself and advises Joe to not give up on Ellen - she knows Ellen will come back to him if he tried reaching out for her. If this is how the film is wanting to show that Connie gives Joe her blessing, I am sure it could have been done in better ways than to seemingly show Joe up... again. The weirdness in the ending seems to balance things out, both of them don't get the girl. Great movie, otherwise. M

Well, I saw this film one night by accident, but I was petrified, because the only humour part -which I consider very important for this sort of romance movies- was wholy put on Joe Pantoliano's shoulders; his character was really powerful, hilarious and a bit outrageous, componding a supporting role as well as the classic formers second actors in the past. In this movie, he looks like specially attractive and masculine. The female actress are average in their representation of a broken lesbian couple; I think William Baldwin is the worst actor here because it's not very believeable his carachter componding.

I didn't expect much of Three of Hearts; indications were that it was something of a dog, and both Billy Baldwin and Sherilyn Fenn aren't exactly reknowned for their choice of projects. So I was quite pleasantly surprised that the film turned out to be a savvy, passably witty little comedy. The locations are well used and both Baldwin and Fenn turn in entertaining performances. Towering above them, though, is Kelly Lynch. Funny, sassy and utterly adorable, she fits the part like a glove, and turns the potentially least interesting role of the threesome into a character to treasure. Inevitably, the film suffers a little when she is offscreen. 6.5/10

SPOILERS THROUGHOUT: I saw this so long ago but loved the premise and really enjoyed it as a comedy even though it's totally off the wall. But it was a good movie, it had funny, fun, characters involved in a rather strange(to put it mildly) situation, and although it's extremely predictable, when one's in the mood for a Genuinely fun, though rather odd, romantic comedy, you could do worse then three of hearts. Three of Hearts didn't get a lot of attention but was, in fact, better then a lot of more popular movies of this genre might be. The plot was kooky as anything but surprisingly worked extremely well, and the mix of performers were great, as they all worked very well together. It also, happily, didn't wind up being cheesy at all because that's always a worry with romantic comedies. But that wasn't a problem here. Of coarse, there is an element of predictability one might expect from a movie such as this. But basically, everything flowed quite nicely. And no matter how predictable the movie, ultimately was, the premise that started the whole thing, was quite original and carried out quite well. Lastly, it's always nice to see one of my favorite actresses-Cherlyn Fenn. All in all this is worth a look if you haven't seen it. My rating is 7 out of 10.

Honestly you can watch this thing in fast forward and still understand the gist of the movie, because that's exactly what I did. I think all the actors did a decent job (I've seen Kelly Lynch in other things and she's great), but the plot was wretched and the characters were flimsy. Who acts like these people? Here's a run down of the main characters: Connie: too over-the-top pathetic Ellen: Hot, but not interesting Joe: WTF!! The moral transformation- "bad boy turned good" was phony. Actually the only great character was played by Joe Pantoliano. Maybe the movie should have been about him and not these confused and hard-up people.

This movie had three of the most important things to look for in a film. It was full of cute guys and gals. I mean, no one on Earth is better looking than Billy Baldwin. Plus the two leading ladies are absolutely gorgeous. It had fun little jokes that were repeated throughout the movie. Plus the plot was totally twisted. A girl who is bi-sexual, Ellen, breaks up with her girlfriend, Connie, who then hires a male escort, Joe, to go to her sister's wedding. They finish the "date" and go back to his place to find it vandalized by a ex-con. Connie takes Joe back to her place and tells him he can stay there. While he's there he can help Connie get Ellen back. From there on out it gets really twisted. Every one needs to see this movie.

Alright, I gave this film no chance, watched it only because it was on and Joe Jackson did the score and knew I wouldn't even keep it on the whole time, but still... sometimes films I intend to dislike ("Signs" is one) turn out to be quite good. This one was not. William Baldwin, Kelly Lynch and Sherilyn Fenn play three annoying city patrons whose lives intertwine in the fact that Kelly Lynch(the most irritating of them all), a lesbian, broke up with her girlfriend (Fenn) and wants her friend (Baldwin who appears totally bored) to pretend to love her ex so that somehow Ms. Fenn will come racing back to her. Or something like that. Watching this movie is about as exciting as reading the phonebook. The lines are dull; I've already singled out Herr Baldwin, but all of the actors seem rather listless and lackluster; the lighting is annoying; and the score that I tuned into the dumb thing exclusively to hear is HARD to hear(but sounded good) because the sound quality was not too hot, either. Finally, I just gave up watching. What a waste it was.

Lesbian lover tries to win back the girl she loves and it's a male prostitute that will help accomplish this ?! This movie portrays love being universal in a way it can go from lesbian (in)to hetero and that, whatever you are, the feelings of love and despair are equal. That is exactly why I liked this movie. Not because there was much to laugh about or the value of "reality" or "morality".

In New York City, Ellen Armstrong (Sherilyn Fenn) needs some space from her girlfriend Connie Czapski (Kelly Lynch). A heart-broken Connie needs a date for a wedding. She hasn't come out to her old traditional Polish neighborhood or family. She decides to hire male escort Joe Casella (William Baldwin). He works for Mickey (Joe Pantoliano) who also runs a sex phone line. Connie comes up with a devious plan. Joe would break Ellen's heart so that she would come running back to Connie. Joey Pants, Harvey, and the phone sex line are all trying to inject humor into the movie with limited success. If anything, I would cut out those parts. They don't have the same tone as the story with the main trio. They do generate the reason for Joe to move in with Connie which may not be a good thing since it muddied the waters of their budding friendship. The reason is still pretty thin and it doesn't make sense that Connie is so trusting of Joe so quickly. Within it all, building their friendship is the heart of this movie. Instead, the filmmaker seems to be stuck with the male fantasy of turning lesbians. Well, Ellen seems to be bi at least. The movie is stuck with some of this more awkward aspects instead of nurturing its more heart-warming aspects. It takes a long arduous road but eventually it gets to the right place. This is a flawed indie and it's not that well made either.