A Bluebird in My Heart | SXSW 2018 Film Review

There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out, but I’m too tough for him. I say, stay in there, I’m not going to let anybody see you. – Charles Bukowski

Titled after the poem, A Bluebird in My Heart follows Danny (Roland Møller), a con just out of prison looking for a fresh start. With an ankle monitor now firmly attached, Danny decides to begin his new life holed up at a sketchy hotel run by Laurence (Veerle Baetens). Bide his time, get a job, keep his head low, that’s all Danny wants from this latest slice of freedom. When Laurence’s misguided daughter, Clara (Lola Le Lann), suffers an assault, the cracks in Danny’s armor begin to emerge.

As the poem alludes to, Danny is a hardened criminal. Initially, he utilizes his dour grimace to keep others at a distance. Sulking through life, disappearing into the seediness of society, feels more manageable for a man desperate to escape whatever horrors lay with his past. One of the strongest aspects to Jérémie Guez’s script (adapted from Dannie Martin’s novel, The Dishwasher) lies in how vague Danny’s character remains throughout the film’s runtime. Like Laurence and Clara, we never know much more about Danny than we can ascertain from his demeanor and appearance.

Roland Møller’s turn is seemingly effortless, which is a testament to the actor’s natural charisma. Many seasoned actors would play Danny as a slick thug, a John Wick-esque vigilante masquerading as hired help, counting the minutes before his true nature allows him to escape and slickly mutilate any who get in his way. Møller is not The Professional (as many will no doubt compare his turn to), his instances of rage are more akin to outbursts of pure fury than a carefully honed set of skills. Instead he is a man attempting to bury his rage until his ultimate realization that some beasts can never be contained…no matter how far they tend to stray. Danny may wish to stand apart from civilization as a whole, but this truth isn’t because of the trouble that might eventually find him, it’s that he might ultimately seek it out himself. It’s just his nature.

The relationship with Clara never fully develops into faintly more than symbolism, though Lann’s portrayal does as we learn how her own father has been incarcerated for years, leaving Danny in an almost pseudo-daddy predicament. This relationship functions as a catalyst for the sporadic brutality of his eventual actions toward the perpetrator, yet does not take away from the focus as Danny remains the focal point through the film’s blistering conclusion.

Director Jérémie Guez could have easily taken the cliché-ridden route of using this setup to deliver a Liam Neeson-style revenge piece. Instead, Guez keeps each moment quiet, contemplative, and almost methodical, until brief surges of violence are necessary for the respective plot turns. It is a surprisingly touching film about a man wrestling with his own fate, and this generally restrained touch of both Guez and Møller are what keeps this Bluebird flying high.