The plot: A young man with a birthmark on his face makes a deal with the devil to become beautiful.Unless you're an emo teen Christian, I doubt that you're really going to like this film. It's about how rowdy gangsters in hoodies are destroying England, finding beauty in life, finding meaning in life, and other crap like that. There's bland, boring music that constantly plays throughout the film. I think the music was supposed to be emotional and beautiful. I found it annoying. Much of this film was annoying, really. I stuck with it until the end, though, and I don't feel as though I wasted my time, but I would have preferred to have spent it watching a better film.However, there were some real moments. If you're willing to sit through a preachy, sentimental story that goes on about ridiculous metaphysical feel-good crap, you get scenes with really funny characters, like an egotistical gay hustler who is predestined to die a horrible death, a sociopath who likes to make small talk about killing his wife, and other assorted oddball characters who appear and disappear just as quickly. Is it worth it? I don't know. Maybe. I think it depends on your tolerance for certain flaws and how receptive you are to the sappy, conservative themes.The writing is a bit rough, and it resorts to poorly-thought-out plot devices a bit too often. The characters are designed to appeal to awkward, depressed teens. The protagonist is attractive, but he has a single flaw that leaves him feeling ugly and forever alone. Please. These kinds of models with a tragic flaw do not draw my sympathy. It's like they're just screaming out for the shy teenage girls to say, "I will love you, tragically flawed model guy! I can look beyond your single surface flaw and see your beauty!" Beyond that, the themes of youth out of control kind of bothered me. There was a positive depiction of a former gang member, but the rest were all vicious animals that couldn't be reasoned with.My question is... how come you never see English horror movies about football hooligans or neo-Nazis?

Faust pact, demons, Devil, Jim Sturgess, warm Timothy Spall. an old story, crumbs of romanticism, good intentions. and presence of Indian child as flame, protector, daughter, help. result - not impressive movie. but touching. not very profound. but sensitive. a story about price of desire, love and happiness. about structure of abdication. in front - the heart. like birthmark on face. as first murder to pay a fake gift. to begin a fight. against yourself. it is shadow of delicate beauty. map of contemporary world. explication. for violence, hate, fear, temptations. and testimony about profound liaisons. a good work. an old story.and, maybe, occasion to meditate about small things - heart of existence.

...but with a beat that's arrhythmic at best, "Heartless" suffers from a distinct case of artsy-fartsy pretension and disjointed storytelling. Jim "Across the Universe" Sturgess is quite good as the doomed protagonist who strikes a Faustian deal in search of release from inner torments, but writer/director Philip "The Krays" Ridley indulges in far too much easy symbolism to deliver a satisfying morality play; he needs a brush-up lesson with Syd Field. Truthfully, there's a lot to like about "Heartless," but the simplistic, muddled plot isn't really dark enough (or clever enough) to properly illuminate the psychodrama its creator wishes to convey. All the elements are there--nice DP work, a decent supporting cast (with the possible exception of the romantic interest), an evocative score and soundtrack--but it all boils down to the unsatisfying script. Worth the free watch I enjoyed courtesy of my local library, but sadly I can't recommend searching this one out; there are simply so many better thematically similar films out there. "Jacob's Ladder" springs instantly to mind.

Wonderfully, powerfully, moving and thought-provoking. It is a rare thing for a horror film to genuinely touch me, but Heartless did just that. It was such an odd mixture of creature-feature horror, a stunningly emotive story and fantastic characterisation that it really defies classification.One thing I do know, however, is that watching Heartless gave me an experience like no other 'horror' film I've seen. The scare moments were in there, and I jumped in all the right places, but the deeper storyline, so brilliantly given life by Jim Sturgess and Nikita Mistry, was what made this film stand out as one of the best I have seen all year. As a general rule I'm not fond of creature/demon based films, because human beings are a lot scarier to me than something that doesn't exist, but far from being just a quest to scare you, this felt like a film that also compelled you to think, and that is where it excelled.The characters were refreshingly three-dimensional, and I really grew to care for them, which made the story all the more engaging – I wanted things to be alright for Jamie, I was rooting for him, and the deeper I got into the story, the scarier it became. That is how horror should work, it should suck you in to a point where you feel what the protagonists are feeling; that is how to produce a real scare. Not just in a jump out of your seat moment, but in the moments after the film has ended and beyond, where you think and contemplate what you may have done in the situation. The direction was excellent and the actual cinematography and use of photographs within the film was gorgeous. The standout element though was by far the superb acting throughout the entire piece. The leads in particular were impressive, but all of the supporting cast were stellar too.Heartless was a winner for me, because it is a film that I know will stay with me for a long time, and could well become one of my go-to films when someone asks me for a gem.