Movie Review: Before We Go

Director: Chris Evans / Starring: Chris Evans & Alice Eve/ Writer(s): Ron Bass, Jen Smolka, Chris Shafer & Paul Vicknair. 

Before We Go is a drama/romance movie about two strangers, Nick Vaughan(Evans) and Brooke Dalton(Eve), who find themselves stranded in New York for the night with only 80 bucks and two non-functional credit cards between the two of them.

The film gets straight to the point opening on a trumpet playing Nick(Evans) in the bustle of Grand Central Station on a late night. He sees Brooke(Eve) storming, seemingly hysterical, through the station down to the subway, dropping and breaking her phone on the way. He chases her down to return it to her and finds out she's stranded in the city because her purse was stolen. Being the good samaritan he is, he offers to help her get home. Brooke is distrusting of Nick at first, she even gives him a wrong name. And that's fair, he's a strange man nearly forcing kindness onto her in the middle of the night. But as if his boyish charm & his disarming kindness didn't already let you know, there's a redemptive scene where he swoops up behind Brooke out of nowhere and throws his arm around her when she's heading down the sidewalk straight for a group of rowdy young men when god knows what was about to happen. It's creepy that he followed her, but you know what they say, the devil you know...

Nick is a man with a bubbly, easygoing personality but some of it is a facade to mask the scars of a past relationship. He seems stoic about it at first, but you later learn how deep his missed opportunity at love cuts. I'll admit, having just recently seen Evans in Age of Ultron as Steve Rogers/Captain America, it's a little hard to immediately separate him from that. Doesn't help Nick has that same upright demeanor to him as Cap, but Evans sheds the Marvel role here as well as he did in Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer. Brooke is "icy" as Nick put it, distant and solemn at first. As the night goes on her personality unravels, she opens up and you learn she's had some turbulence in her love life as well, though, more recent than Nick's. 

I haven't seen much of Alice Eve, I know her from Star Trek Into Darkness, though. She's really, really good in this role. She and Evans have fervent chemistry as two characters with a deep connection whilst in a haze over the love of someone else. Towards the middle of the film I was close to writing it off as a derivative of Lost In Translation, but the last act proves this is different from that. Yes there's the dynamic of two disillusioned strangers having a chance meeting against the backdrop of a big city(New York City is affectionately lensed by 'Like Crazy' & 'In Time' cinematographer John Guleserian) but Before We Go is a story that addresses its characters' problems directly. It doesn't offer an answer, because there's never a definite answer when it comes to things like this, but presents a strong notion about what the answer may be.

"You can't allow the people you love to determine how you love." is the most important piece of dialogue in the film and it offers what might be a novel point of view to some. It's spoken to Brooke, but it applies to both characters and anyone who's ever loved someone so to the extent that it makes them question themselves. Being in love with someone even though they're happy without you, still being in love with someone despite how much they've hurt you. That depth of love may not be fathomable to a lot of people, but then again... it might just be. This isn't about just laying down and being okay with those circumstances, though. It's about accepting those things as they are so you can move on if need be. 

"You have to be okay with not being okay" Nick says and he's right. Whether that be a missed opportunity at love or the prospect thereof... Ironically what may just be the case for the two characters. Chris Evans' feature debut behind the camera handles the expansive topic of love tenderly, but doesn't come off as sappy. It's kind of distracting that Evans is in the movie himself, but it's smart that started out small and used himself as draw. It'll be interesting to see where he goes from here. I remember a while back him talking about focusing on directing more.

Movie Review: Knock Knock

Director: Eli Roth / Starring: Keanu Reeves, Lorenza Izzo, Ana de Armas, Aaron Burns & Ignacia Allamand / Writer(s):  Michael Ronald Ross(original script), Eli Roth, Nicolás López, Guillermo Amoedo & Anthony Overman

'Knock Knock' is a thriller about a 40-something husband and father who's spending his weekend alone at home while his family is away when two stranded young woman unexpectedly knock on his door for help. What starts out as a good gesture quickly turns to a decision Evan will regret for the rest of his life.

Evan(Reeves) is an architect who lives in a big house in well-to-do suburbia, has two beautiful children and an "exotic" artist wife(Allamand). He seemingly has the perfect life despite one slight flaw: he and his wife aren't having sex. The film starts out offering a bevy of evidence as to why he may or may not deserve everything that he has coming to him, but also all but explicitly says "hey, look at how great this guy's life is, but wait! he's not having sex with his wife? THAT SUCKS... DOESN'T IT?"

It does a decent job of setting things up, but it's heavily leading which isn't exactly bad thing as long as you're not doing it in way that makes sure anybody who's seen enough movies can predict what's gonna happen. And that's exactly what this film does. You could file this under the Chekov's gun principle, but depending on the crowd, it could either be seen as something neat or a plain cop-out. I think what separates those two crowds is 1) what the device is and its overall effect on the plot and 2) whether or not the time between when the Chekov's gun device is presented and when it's used is enthralling enough to make you forget it even if only for a moment. And in this movie said time is partly engaging, but the device(Evan's should injury) is inconsequential so it's definitely a cheap cop-out.

Evan's family goes away to their beach house for the weekend while he stays back to finish some work. When the two lost young women, Genesis(Izzo) & Bel(Armas) show up on Evan's doorstep soaking wet from the rain, he does what a decent human being would do, right? Keenu Reeves is notorious for his kind and solemn nature in real life and genuinely feel that part of him here so it's not a hard sell to believe he'd do something exactly like this in real life. Though, concerning his role solely you can't help but think from that slight twinkle in his eye that he might just be interested in doing more than helping the two young women.

Evan let's Genesis & Bel in, puts their clothes in the dryer and talks to them while waiting for a uber. Genesis & Bel soon try to flatter Evan and begin to casually talk about sex, alternative relationship dynamics and the supposed falsity of monogamy. They talk about sex in general in an idealistic way, which in theory is fine, everybody has their own lifestyle, but they talk about it in a way that's geared to appeal to any whoremongering man so you know this particular rhetoric is coming from these two not because they genuinely believe in it, but are simply using it as a tool of seduction, a way to warm Evan up to the idea of sleeping with them. And you can see he might be susceptible to it by the way perks up when compliment him and pretend to be interested in his djing days.  And sure enough, when he doesn't get the hint they resort stripping down naked, spewing some perfectly generic dirty talk straight out of a porno and he falls for it.

Once the deed is done, Evan wakes up the next day to Genesis & Bel running amok through his house, completely devoid of any maturity they seemed to have the night before. He eventually gets them to leave but things go dark when they return. They tie him up, torture and rape him. It's revealed they're playing at some sick game, punishing him for falling victim to their seduction. "I'm a good person. I made a mistake!" Evan says, decrying acts... adding that he loves his family and he's a good father. "Why didn't you think about your family when you were inside me?" to which he replies "My family had nothing to do with that." Exactly. But sadly, at that point in the film that's where any inkling of intelligence concerning the topic of infidelity stops.

Genesis & Bel are intelligent and resourceful, but their motives are poorly elaborated. It appears Bel's motivation stems from sexual abuse and Genesis' from a sense of resentment she has to the upper class. Solid motives, but not delved into enough to make you care. This could've been remedied with some compelling back and forth between Evan and the girls, but instead Roth opts out for some sequences of thrill that are quickly deflated by all too convenient instances of happenstance and half-hearted dialogue intent on delivering a message that's already overstated in society: cheating is bad. It's ironic that the common complaint about Roth's work is that he's indulgent when it comes to gore because he's surprisingly tame here and it's to the film's detriment.

Lorenza Izzo & Ana de Armas are fine actresses here, the script is just weak. Keanu Reeves plays the repressed family man, framed as the innocent and he does the gentle part of it well, but it's later revealed he's phoning it in when he hams up the scenes where he's upset. This is a film that had good actors, a premise with potential but just doesn't measure up in the end.

Movie Review: Goodnight Mommy

Director(s): Severin Fiala & Veronika Franz / Starring: Susanne Wuest, Lukas Schwarz & Elias Schwarz / Writer(s): Severin Fiala & Veronika Franz. 

Per IMDb, Goodnight Mommy is a German-Language psychological thriller/drama about two twin boys who move into a new home with their mother after she has face changing cosmetic surgery, but under her bandages is someone the children don't recognize. 

The trailer for this film has been spreading through the internet like wildfire for months now. Usually with the adjectives "terrifying" & "horrifying" attached. I was linked to the trailer on twitter and wasn't exactly hyped as everyone else was about it, but it still looked good to me. Now that I've watched I'm here to report that this is not a horror... at least not in a pure sense of the word anyways. And I kind of expected this.

The film starts out with the young boys, Elias & Lukas, roaming the Austrian countryside. The location wasn't specified, but my god is it beautiful. This cinematography in this film is immediately spectacular. The few, and I mean few, films I've seen out of Austria & Germany have been visually bleak but the visuals for this film are vibrant & indulgent. I was in awe of it from beginning to end. The boys play hide-and-seek, frolic through the forest, go swimming, etc. Do things that kids their age do. when you finally meet their mother(Wuest), it's a cold scene. The twins are unforgiving in their reaction the seeing their mother's bandaged face for what seems to be the first time and she misconstrues their being startled for disgust. Tension in the household begins to simmer.

At first it seems like the film is about the mother's disappointment with her self-image. It even seems to be hinted at with the big portraits of distorted female figures strewn throughout the walls of the house. From that I figured her impatience & resent of her children was due to their youth. Those elements are definitely there, but it's not the entire story. You later learn that the true source of her resentment is and what the second purpose of those portraits when the boys start to suspect their mother isn't their mother.

If you got caught up in the "most terrifying/horrifying" hype when the trailer was buzzing then you will be disappointed sitting through the first two acts of the film waiting to be scared by something. There are some slightly disturbing/hard to look at things that happen, some startling cuts in the editing and it has generally disquiet atmosphere, but this is mostly a slow burn... not a pure horror. Goodnight Mommy is a story of emotional & psychological trauma. To be fair, the way the trailer is cut is purposely manipulative in how it portrays it as a horror, but it still shocked me when I seen so many negative reviews for the film.

 It suffers  the same fate as The Babadook & the underrated Silent House remake. People come in with certain expectations of what they think it's supposed to be and miss the point of what it actually is in the process. It's not a horror with contrived plot about two sociopathic boys whose mother has been replaced by an evil witch or something, it's about two boys who are so perplexed by their mother treating them differently they think she's another person entirely. "Our mother would never do that," Elias & Lukas say in unison  when presenting their mother a video of her hitting one of them. 

The human psyche is fragile... even more so when it comes to children. So it's natural for children to lash out when they suddenly experience resentment & bitter embrace from the person who's supposed to love them the most. On the flip-side, this film is presented from a completely biased point of view of the children for most of the runtime. The Schwarz twins are brilliant, you'd think there's not much to what they had to do, but the precise subtlety to performances should not be taken for granted.

When you examine the mother's behavior closer, and look at it from her angle it becomes a completely different film from what you thought you were watching. Imagine you're a recent divorcée, highly insecure about your self-image and in a sensitive state... reeling from a traumatic experience(Susanne Wuest's face is wrapped in bandages for 2/3 of the film, but she still gives a great turn, emitting emotions the way she did with her face covered is no small feat.) Imagine the two people in the world you'd expect to adore you essentially reject you and choose each other's company over yours. Of course that doesn't excuse the abuse, but just imagine the isolation you'd experience seeing them frolic carelessly through the countryside while you're emotionally wrecked. Is that all of the story? No, but I have to reiterate that these elements are there and shouldn't be whisked away by the "twist" that's barely a twist in the first place. These are real-life themes only retrofitted with "horror" tropes. This isn't anything new either. 

In the beginning, most horrors were rooted in real-life phobias, fears & traumatic events. It's just that over the years horror as a genre has become a thing of its own and it has a lot of people thinking  everything that evokes some element of horror is supposed to scare them when that's not necessarily the case. Not the most terrifying film ever, but is one of the most engaging thrillers you'll see in a while.

Movie Review: Beasts of No Nation

Director: Cary Fukunaga / Starring: Abraham Attah, Idris Elba, Emmanuel Nii Adom Quaye / Writer(s): Uzodinma Iweala(novel), Cary Fukunaga

Beasts Of No Nation is a drama about a young boy's story of survival as child soldier in a war-torn unnamed West African country, based on a novel of the same name by Uzodinma Iweala. 

The film starts out with a voice-over of 12-year-old Abu(Abraham) telling us about his current life and his family, but learn nothing about the war between Abu's government and the NDF rebels, just that they're warring and there's some paranoia about it in his community. The war reaches his village and Abu is torn from his family and everything he loves. With almost no time for grief, he's immediately forced to go into survival mode. A rebel leader only known as Commandant (Elba) & his faction happen upon Abu and offer him an invitation to join them in their battle against the army. Abu joins knowing it's either be a rebel or die. He's trained, initiated then quickly dropped onto the front line of the war.

Abu is taken under the wing of Commandant along with another boy, a mute named Striker. They bond over a shared victimization from the Commandant whom Elba plays as charismatic, woeful and meditative. You naturally wonder about man who leads children into war, but despite that he still doesn't come off as the type of savage beast you'd expect these actions from. He's best part of the film by far, but his character sadly isn't delved into. He's not redeemable by any means, but he is humanized. You can tell he genuinely believes in what he's doing. He's a cog in the machine, not the driving force.

Abu's journey of survival plods along from one act of violence to the next until it feels like only a matter of fact. Abu is a boy who having only spent 12 years walking the earth and is forced to do things not even men should be doing. He's hurled into a world of darkness, but it's bittersweet because the film is shot so beautifully by Fukunaga yet so many horrible things are happening. It's harrowing, but majestic imagery. Sometimes it works well  syncing up with the contrast of Abu and the other child soldiers still behaving like children in the midst of all these violent acts they're ordered to do. But it ultimately feels wrong.

That fact this film takes place in an unnamed African country is simultaneously detrimental and beneficial to audience's perception of it's narrative. Though there is a little political subtext to it, this film is not about the tragic wars that take place in African countries, it's about a boy's journey in a war and how it threatens to dehumanize him, the backdrop doesn't matter as much as the story period. The anonymity of the country helps the viewer focus on the protagonist, but it could also lead to those who are uneducated having a blanketed perception about the continent. I hope it leans more to the former.

Even with everything he does, it's still hard to buy him transitioning into a heartless soldier. Maybe that's the intent considering he's still only a boy. But it feels muddled in the end as it amounts to a conclusion that feels a little unlikely. I know of similar real-life narratives that have ended this way so maybe I should instead say it just feels too neat for what kind of film this is. 

It feels similar to Fukunaga's first film Sin Nombre. That film is just as brutal and bleak, but handled with more delicacy. This is a story of survival as well Sin Nombre, but where that film ends on a note of promise, this ends feeling kind of indifferent and ultimately pointless. There's suffering, loss, more suffering and then what? Still, it's a good film, but not great. It's a heartbreaking and visceral experience, just it doesn't have a strong impact outside of that.

Movie Review: Z For Zachariah

Director: Craig Zobel / Starring: Margot Robbie, Chiwetel & Chris Pine / Writer(s): Nissar Modi/Based on the Robert C. O'Brien novel of the same name, Z For Zachariah is a drama set in a post-apocalyptic world where most of the human race has been wiped out in the aftermath of nuclear warfare.

It starts with a wide shot of a deserted town followed by a series of shots tracking Ann(Robbie) in her makeshift hazmat suit scavenging a town on the outskirts of the valley, a natural haven from the fallout, she lives in. Though you only see her traversing the valley alone for about five minutes, you still get a clear picture of how isolated she is. It's even more evident when she first comes across John Loomis(Ejiofor) but doesn't engage him immediately. She just observes him at first like she's never seen another human before. She's hesitant to approach him until she sees him go to bathe in a stream with radioactive water that runs in from outside of the valley; she he confronts and warns him about the dangers of the water then he scrambles back to his wagon to inject himself with some kind medicine to combat the radiation poisoning. Ann helps him, takes him back to her house and nurses him back to health.

From thereon out, the film begins to play out like a loose take on the story of Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden. There's that theme of religion vs science/god vs man. You learn John is intelligent, but also a little condescending. Or at least it seems that way in how he relates to Ann. He's hopeful, but something from his past weighs on him. Ann is hopeful as well, but naive and apprehensive. Chiwetel & Robbie nail these roles, Ejiofor appropriately so. Though vastly scaled down from the novel, he's still true to the spirit of that character. 

Robbie is also true to her character from the novel, but it's disturbing because in the novel Ann is a teenager. They don't explicitly say she is in the film, but Robbie is clearly playing it that way. There's literally an exchange between Pine & Ejiofor where they agree she seems "older than she is" and it's creepy as hell. The film already strays greatly from the novel, why not change that detail as well? Robbie's performance would've benefited from her playing a more mature woman and it definitely would've elevated the whole love triangle dynamic.

Pine's character Caleb doesn't exist in the book so he has the most free rein for his performance and he's fine for it. He arrives and seems like a sinister element(Chris Pine has always looked like a bad guy to me) but he's portrayed as mostly harmless outside of the inevitable pissing match he and John have. I think Zobel buys into the Adam & Eve bit when he portrays Caleb as a possible threat akin to the snake in the Garden of Eden, presents John's wealth of knowledge as an asset, but also a possible danger to the trio's sanctuary. And creepily, Ann is presented as nubile & virginal. All attributes inherent to biblical characters in one way or another. To be honest, the script lacks, but Zobel's direction is good. He sets the perfect atmosphere for tension in a situation like this to arise, but it never comes out like it should. He has vision, but not a discernible voice. His subtlety worked in his first feature Compliance, but it comes off as lackadasical here. 

This is Nissar Modi's second feature script(to be produced) and it was a popular one from the Black List. It had potential to be great film with some minor tweaks. I'll give him kudos for taking this already original story and making it his own, but he still gets an asterisk for it being it an adaptation and fumbling the middle part. Like I said, Zobel's direction is good, the story just doesn't match his sensibilities from what I've seen from him so far, though, this is only his second feature as well. I think this is an interesting film overall. It's essentially boring, but it's not bad. It's even thought-provoking at times, especially the ending that may frustrate some, but trust there's a good reason it ends that way. Think Knife In The Water if you've ever seen it. 

Movie Review: Five Star

Five Star(2014)
Writer/Director: Keith Miller
Starring: James 'Primo' Grant, John Diaz, Wanda Nobles

"There ain't no sympathy in this shit... it's real." 

Setting a clear tone for the rest of the film, Five Star opens up with one of the leads, Primo, telling an intimate story about he missed the birth of his son due to him being in jail. This is a solemn, but touching opening scene expounding on the film's two main themes: fatherhood & manhood.

Primo is a veteran Blood gang member. Specifically what bloods call a 'five star' general as such as the film's namesake and is said to be so in real life. Primo is a man of strong character and complexity. All in one breath he is a loving husband, proud father with an even deeper love for his children, a mentor and to put it no more or less harshly than it is: a ruthless gangster. Though, not the stereotypical menacing, gun toting, maniacal thug you see on TV everyday, he is a gangster nonetheless. Like most people he wants a better life for his children than he had. As evidenced by the scene where he compares his gang initiation at age thirteen to the rituals of a Bar Mitzvah, he understands exactly why he's in the world he inhabits and isn't ashamed of it. Though it's twisted, it made him the man he is today and he's proud of that, but he has sense enough to want better options for his children.

John is a teenager on the cusp of manhood in search of an identity of his own. His late father, like Primo, was a veteran Blood gang member and was a mentor to Primo. Grateful for that guidance, Primo offers to do the same for John and take him under his tutelage. Seeming to have no other apparent ambitions other than making money, John accepts. You later learn he has deeper motivations. Every time John leaves the house, he can't bend a corner without someone telling him how a great of a man his father was, how much he looks like him, how much he was respected, etc. There are suspicious circumstances surrounding his father's death and amidst talk of what kind of man he was, John's mother(Nobles) fears the same fate for her son. John assures her he is not his father, that he's his own man and his own ideas about his father. He wonders why all these people seem to know him better than he ever did. He wonders why his father was such a good man, but wasn't there for him. They say you're not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but what else can you say about someone who virtually abandoned you? John certainly doesn't hate his father, but he surely doesn't fully love him either.

The film cuts back and forth between John and Primo on their separate but intersecting paths. Because there are some scenes that lag and the dialogue seems to meander, I've seen some people say the film is pointless and boring. I will say it doesn't seem like a narrative-driven film at first, but there's definitely a story here it's just not immediately cohesive. It's an atypical style of filmmaking; the cast is flush with non-actors and outside of the occasional one who can't stop smiling, they do very well most of the time. It's hard to comment on the script when it doesn't seem like there's much writing to it aside from a basic plot. Most of this film could very well be improvised so commend Miller for getting all that he did out of his talent. The camerawork is mostly handheld, lighting is mostly natural. I seen one summation of the film saying it's like "John Cassavetes directing an episode of The Wire" and I can agree with the Cassavetes comparison alone, but the The Wire one... that annoys me because every time there's something drug related with black people in it and it's any good, it gets compared to The Wire. This is not a "Gang movie" or a riff on The Wire. The Wire is a clinical ensemble interwoven with deep socio-political inclinations. This film is a loose, but intimate character study that gives a nonjudgemental look into characters that're rarely ever really explored with such care or depth and it merits attention on those qualities alone. I recommend it.

Movie Review: Spring

Spring(2014)

Director: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorehead

Writer: Justin Benson

Starring: Lou Taylor Pucci(Evil Dead), Nadia Hilker, Jeremy Gardner(The Battery)

"Pick your poison."

I *think* I read about this over on thefilmstage.com. I do remember watching a little bit of the trailer then cutting it off after I got the gist of what it was about to avoid seeing anything that would lead to ruining the entire story. As I said before in my The Dead Lands review, when I hear/read a film is up my alley, I like going in knowing as little possible. I went into Spring thinking it was a horror. It turns out to be more than that. 

It starts out with our lead, Evan(Pucci), sitting beside his cancer stricken mother as she lay dying in bed. Not unlike many horrors. You know the ones... the lead has either just dealt with a tragedy or is still reeling from a traumatic experience in their past. For a minute it had me worried, but when the cops show up at Evan's house because he almost beats a guy to death in a bar forcing him to flee for Italy, the film takes a really, really good turn. He gets to Italy, there's a quick montage of him doing tourist-y stuff. And then he meets up with two Brits who seem like roughnecks at first, but are nice enough and invite him to go to the country with them and so they go to this beautiful, and I mean BEAUTIFUL town, Conversano I think it is, I only know from looking up the filming locations on IMDb, I watched this movie twice and didn't hear them say.

Evan and these Brits stay there for a few days, during the stay Evan meets a beautiful young woman named Louise(Hilker) at the bar, a local, who tries to seduce Evan, but turns around and cuts out when he asks her out on a date to try to get to know her. A few days go by and the Brits decide to leave, Evan stays behind and gets a job. He runs into Louise again and finally she goes out with him and they hit it off. There's a quote on the poster for the film that says "A HYBRID OF RICHARD LINKLATER AND H.P. LOVECRAFT." I've only read two Lovecraft books and I don't know, I could probably stand to read more to get a full grasp on the nature of his works, but from what I did read, he doesn't have much of an influence here outside of maybe some of the monsters? However, the former comparison to Linklater mostly rings true. Has all the elements intrinsic of his work(The Before trilogy mainly.) The fluid, subtle camerawork, the walk-and-talk motif & the naturalistic dialogue. Although, nothing particularly thought-provoking is said(mostly in Evan's case), the genuine chemistry between the two characters is definitely there. 

Pucci portrays a tortured, but surprisingly optimistic character in Evan. The guy has the absolute worst luck in the world, but still plays it down, what a trooper. Despite all of that I really didn't care for him. Thought he was bit pushy & badgering to be honest. I don't really know what Louise saw in him, but what do women ever see in us? And I could be surely reaching, but I think that's one of, if not the biggest, the themes of the film along with exploring some of the dangers women face in society, it also shows how big of deal it really is when what women start a family with a guy, just on a grander scale. And that's not to say Louise was "perfect" in comparison to Evan, because she could be impatient and dismissive at times, not to mention a whole lot of other things, but to say that women in general are amazing creatures(see what I did there? No? Just watch the film) that sometimes give up things to settle down and that's nothing to be taken lightly. 

Hilker plays a wise, free-spirit type well, but didn't care for her character much either. But together, Evan & Louise are great. Their banter, the flirting, moments of vulnerability they share, etc. Like I said, genuine chemistry between the two. The horror element  is there with some great VFX(CGI & practial), but I haven't said much about it because I don't want to ruin anything. Plus, even though I am a huge genre fan, I say it's only the second most interesting part of the story AFTER the romance. You can trust it's that good because films that focus heavily on romance don't usually impress me. All in all, it's good film. An intriguing genre splicer equipped with fangs, tentacles & claws, but most important of all: a heart.