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None but the Lonely Heart Movie Review

None but the Lonely Heart is a 1944 drama film directed by Clifford Odets and starring Cary Grant. It is a very strange, but interesting movie.

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“I’m so broke I’m in two halves“

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A young indecisive man tries to get his life on track to help his ailing mother. This film was obviously based on a book as it’s very literary in its approach for better and for worse. It has that atmosphere, characterization and storytelling reminiscent of novels, but it is elevated by some solid technical aspects, making the movie quite cinematic.

The highlight among those is its gloomy, foggy cinematography that makes the movie seem melancholic and even otherworldly. It is unlike any other movie released during this period. The score is also good and the directing from Clifford Odets is surprisingly strong given that it’s only one of two filmmaking credits that he has.

The highlight, though, is the acting. Ethel Barrymore won an Oscar for her supporting role and she was terrific while Barry Fitzgerald was also wonderful in a non-nominated performance. Another actor who got a nomination is Cary Grant himself in what is one of the strangest and most serious roles of his career. He was terrific and he deserved that recognition as he sold the character’s emotional sequences with so much power, but he was definitely miscast and there is no getting around that. Ernie Mott is supposed to be a teenager or an adolescent and Grant was simply too old to play him.

None but the Lonely Heart is an odd movie that doesn’t quite work, though I certainly appreciate its ambition. The main issue is that it’s way too slow and thus far from engaging. The first half bored me with its lack of momentum while the second half was much more eventful and the ending was quite moving.

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The entire movie is emotionally complex and moody, but it needed a better adapted screenplay and much stronger editing. With those tweaks, it could have honestly been a classic. This way, it’s solid but flawed. Still, it deserves more attention for the things that it does right and for Grant’s tremendous performance.