Movie Review of And a Warm Heart

And a Warm Heart is director Krzysztof Zanussi’s latest film. He also wrote it. It’s about an amoral, nihilistic evil millionaire who has a heart condition (what's really surprising is that he even has one in the first place). While in the hospital, he meets a young man who tried to kill himself because he lost his job, his place of living and his girlfriend, all in one day. The millionaire decides to convince the young man to go through with the suicide so the millionaire can take his heart for a transplant. Things don’t go according to plan. Needless to say, it’s a comedy, and a very funny and dark one at that. The acting highlight is Szymon Bobrowski as Angelo, though he’s more of a fallen angel than anything, the millionaire’s right hand man who is put in charge of convincing the young man to do himself in. Angelo finds his assignment to be as difficult as it was for Charlie Chaplin when he tried to off Martha Raye in Monsieur Verdoux. Zanussi, who I believe is a devout Catholic, ends the story on a note of redemption. Why is it that when directors and writers in Europe deal with religious and spiritual issues they make movies like this, Diary of a Country Priest and The Gospel According to St. Matthew and in the U.S. we get films like The Ten Commandments and the Left Behind series?