Heartland Review

Heartland is streaming on Netflix now. A former country rock star searches for her missing niece in Shana Feste’s Heartland, a film with the broad appearance of a neo-noir, but one that doesn’t have nearly enough thrills or intrigue. The story comes from a place of love, both for country music and for Nashville. However, it unfolds too mechanically to unearth the seedy underbelly at which it hints, making for lackluster mystery despite Jessica Chastain’s enormous efforts at drawing emotions from a tepid script. It begins interestingly enough, with Chastain’s washed-up, tough-as-nails musician Misty Jones huddled over a grave as she tearfully buries her dog before threatening the neighbor who killed it. None of this has any bearing on the larger plot, but it paints Misty as a cornered animal; she has nothing and no one. Her fridge is scant except for a forgotten Grammy she stores there for safe-keeping, a fun bit of environmental storytelling by way of visual information.

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