This is the central idea behind “Hungry Hearts,” written and directed by Saverio Costanzo. It’s a tense, little thriller that keeps you on your toes, but it’s also rather thin and suffers from some major narrative and character issues.
Alba Rohrwacher stars as Mina, the well-intentioned child abuser, obsessed with keeping her newborn baby boy safe. She doesn’t trust western medicine, instead opting for more natural remedies like giving him seed oil and maintaining the old “let-the-baby-tough-it-out” philosophy when he has a fever. She refuses to feed the baby any animal products and is hesitant to take her baby into the outside world in fear of germs.
Herein lies an inconsistency with Mina’s character: She’s so afraid of germs —she makes people wash their hands upon entering her home — but when her infant son has a fever, her solution is to let it run its course?
Her husband, Jude (Adam Driver), begins to get concerned, and when he notices that his son isn’t growing, he decides to do something about it.
To Costanzo’s credit, the movie never goes quite where you think it will. It begins innocently enough like an offbeat Sundance rom-com — the two even have a quirky meet-cute in the bathroom of a Chinese restaurant. However, things become anything but quirky and cute as the movie grows increasingly unsettling. It even ventures into mild horror movie territory, complete with creepy music box music and the occasional Bernard Herrman-esque instrumental sting.
Watching “Hungry Hearts,” you can tell Costanzo was shooting on a micro budget. The film stock is low-quality, and most of the action is contained within Jude and Mina’s small apartment, with a few street shots and brief sequences in a doctor’s office.
In the apartment, you get the impression that shooting in such a confined space posed issues for Costanzo of where to place the camera and how to frame the shots; as a result, we get a lot of close-ups and crammed medium shots. Yet, these space constraints actually work in the picture’s favor: Placing a majority of the action in such a tight space evokes a feeling of claustrophobia, heightening the already-tense situation.
Rohrwacher spends most of the movie looking sullen and fragile. Based on Mina’s own anorexic figure, it’s not difficult to see why her baby is so malnourished — she can barely take care of herself.
Yet, Costanzo doesn’t make her into a complete monster. She’s more pathetic than evil, and we do get tender moments between her and her son in between the crazy moments. At the same time, we don’t get a sense of who Mina is before she meets Jude and has the baby, making her insanity and aversion to western medicine feel a little too sudden. It would have been better if Costanzo had made her descent into madness more gradual.
“Hungry Hearts” also marks a dramatic turn for Driver, who’s known primarily for comedies. As the concerned, sane parent Jude, Driver certainly shows promise, but he’s not there yet. In his comedic roles, he exudes such natural charm, making him the highlight of a number of recent films, but his performance here often feels forced and awkward, rather than genuine. There are a few instances where he loses his temper that come off over-the-top and not in keeping with the picture’s tone.
I wish Costanzo’s script cut deeper and that the movie reached a more satisfying conclusion. While the climax is shocking and unexpected, the resolution is handled too neatly and quickly, the final scene ultimately feeling underwhelming.
At the same time, Costanzo does a great job of maintaining suspense, making you feel anxious throughout, about how far Mina will take her crazed mission to keep her son safe.