Heartaches

This female buddy movie has often been compared to Don Shebib’s first feature, Goin’ Down the Road. There are some similarities, but this script is by Terence Heffernan and it’s quite different in many ways. The essential story centres on two woman, Bonnie Howard (Annie Potts) and Rita Harris (Margot Kidder). Although married to race car driver Stanley Howard (Robert Carradine), the neglected and lonely Bonnie ends up pregnant following a one-night stand and decides to leave town, in part to escape her dull life, and in part to see about an abortion. On a bus to Toronto she meets the foul-mouthed man-hunter, Rita who is an outgoing, free-spirit looking for her own impossible dream. The movie follows them through a series of vignettes and we get to enjoy the contrast between the streetwise Rita and the still relatively innocent Bonnie. Once in the big city they get an apartment together and find menial work in a mattress factory. Rita falls for Marcello (Winston Rekert), the handsome nephew of the factory owner but is ultimately betrayed when his fiancée arrives from Italy. Meanwhile, Bonnie`s husband comes looking for her and when confronted about why she left she is forced to tell him the truth. Heartaches is an accomplished, well-directed film but viewers used to Shebib’s earlier work may find it overly sentimental. It was nominated for eleven Genie Awards and won for Lead Actress (Kidder), Foreign Actress (Annie Potts) and Original Screenplay (Terence Heffernan).