My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To (2020)
Directed by Jonathan Cuartas
Dwight and his sister Jessie reach a crossroads over what to do about their little brother Thomas, a sickly child with a mysterious affliction.
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What critics compared My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To to
While Let the Right One In (2008) comes to mind, Cuartas is more grounded by emotional and social ills, to a degree where it feels more akin to We Are What We Are (2010) mixed with Fists in the Pocket (1965).
My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To is both unsettling, and sad, reminiscent of the chilly desolation of Let the Right One In , and bolstered by excellent performances, particularly Fugit, who plays Dwight as resigned, resentful, terrified and naive at the same time.
The film’s somber tone and deliberate pacing are reminiscent of Let the Right One In , but the events depicted here feel weightier and more tragic, despite the former being a better film overall.
The way director Jonathan Cuartas has deconstructed the vampire film here feels different than classics like Let the Right One In or Abel Ferrara’s heroin parable The Addiction .
This is closer in tone to movies like George Romero’s masterpiece “Martin” (1978), the Nicolas Cage hallucinatory black comedy “Vampire’s Kiss” (1989) and the bleak Swedish import “Let the Right One In” (2008), films that stress psychological horrors over fangs in necks and which approach their situations in ways that make you question whether the characters in question actually are vampires or not.
But the film’s conviction and strong performances should appeal to those who appreciated such prior understated, “realistic” spins on vampire cinema as “The Hamiltons,” George A. Romero’s “Martin,” the original “Let the Right One In,” or more recent “The Transmigration.”