Directed by Fernando Trueba, Haunted Heart got everything right, apart from the fact the story didn’t do justice to the caliber of the artists they brought on board. I found the first half of the film quite engaging, and it felt like it had something to offer. I still feel that the premise of a woman being stuck with a mysterious man with a shady past on an island had a lot of potential, but the story was just not able to live up to it. That said, let’s find out what happened in the film and what Alex had to deal with on that isolated island.
Spoiler Alert
How did Alex meet Max?
Alex traveled all the way from Barcelona when she was offered the post of hostess at a restaurant located on a remote island, the most picturesque place one could imagine, in Greece. Alex missed her train, and she had to endure an excruciatingly uncomfortable bus ride. And then, to make matters worse, she had to take a ferry to reach the island, something that she hated. Alex hated being on water, as once, when she was a child, she passed out in a swimming pool, and her family actually thought that they had lost her. The incident had made her phobic, and she never set foot in the swimming pool again. Alex arrived at the restaurant, and she met the owner of the place, Mr. Webster, aka Max, who told her that the position had been filled by a man named Dmitri. Alex was supposed to arrive a week earlier, but since she didn’t arrive on time, Max thought that she had bailed on them, and so he decided to interview the next candidate who came to meet them. Alex told Max that she hadn’t been able to inform him, as she’d lost her phone, and then she’d missed her train too. Max realized that Alex really needed that job, and so he offered her to work as a waitress for the time being.
Alex, not having any other job offers, decided to stick around, at least for some time. Max happened to be this extremely reserved guy, and because he spoke so little, he had a mysterious aura about himself. Alex felt intrigued as she was just not able to break through the wall and find out who her boss really was. Alex, on the contrary, was the kind of person who liked to express her feelings. She made it quite clear through her actions that she was interested in him. It felt as if Max was in a constant battle with himself, where sometimes he just wanted to give in, and then there were moments where he flat out ran away from the situation. This entire game made Alex frustrated to the point where she told Max that she didn’t understand what he wanted. Meanwhile, Dmitri, the host, decided to leave the island as he wanted to be with the love of his life, and so Max went to Alex and offered her the job. That also led to an argument between them, as Alex wanted to know if Max’s offer was strictly professional or if it was coming from a personal space. Max, being Max, told her that he liked her work ethic and it was professional indeed. Alex got triggered, and he stopped talking to him. But then there came a time when Max decided to take that leap of faith and just give in to his impulsiveness. There were a lot of things that Alex also didn’t know about Max, but she was ready to embark on a journey with him, not thinking too much about the intricacies of it. Everything seemed so perfect on the outside that Alex would have never imagined what was going to happen with her next, or the things Max was capable of hiding from her.
Why was Max insecure of Chico?
Chico helped Max in his business, and his personality was the complete opposite of Max’s. Chico was a flamboyant ladies’ man who had a way with words, and his liveliness was kind of infectious. Chico told Max when he first saw Alex how attractive he found her. Chico, at that time, was dating Ilya, and it wouldn’t be wrong to say that they had a very weird relationship dynamic. Ilya got married to an older man who happened to be quite rich, but she still kept seeing Chico after that. There were times when Alex felt that Max was hiding something from her. She didn’t know who to confide in, and so she went to Chico to ask about his opinions and see if he knew something about Max’s past.
Alex had found a clarinet at Max’s home, and he’d told her that he didn’t know how to play it. But later Alex got to know that Max was actually a child prodigy, and he professionally made music back in the day. Alex felt bad when she had to ask Chico to dig up Max’s past and get her whatever information he could find. She knew that it was not the right thing to do, but she didn’t feel like she had any other option. Though Max didn’t say anything most of the time, he was an extremely observant man. He saw Chico hanging out with Alex a couple of times, and he got really insecure as he didn’t know what the nature of their conversation was. He expected the worst, and that led him to feel very jealous of Chico. Max also wasn’t wrong in thinking what he did because Chico did tell Alex that he had developed feelings for her. Alex told him blatantly that though she liked him as a person, she didn’t love him the way he wanted her to. Max and Alex had a few arguments pertaining to Chico, and the former ultimately confronted Chico and almost threatened him to stay away from Alex. Chico decided to leave the island as Max no longer wanted to work with him, and he needed to look for some other source of income. One thing that became very clear during the confrontation that Max had with Chico was that the former had this hidden violent side that nobody knew about. He seemed to be an extremely calm and composed person, but the reality was a bit different.
Did Max Kill His Wife And Son?
Some time after Chico left the island, he gave a call to Alex and asked her to meet him at the island without telling Max anything about it. He said that he had found some incriminating evidence against Max, and that he had gotten to know why he came to the island, why he changed his identity, and what he had done in the past. So the vinyl record that Chico and Alex had gotten their hands on earlier had the name Paul Fyre on it, which made them realize that for some reason Max had changed his name. A plot twist came when Max saw those messages that Chico had sent to Alex before she could. Max deleted the messages and waited for Chico to arrive at the island. Chico was shocked when he saw Max standing in front of him, and he told him that he was going to tell Alex who he actually was. But before Chico could do that, Max killed him and then buried his body on the island. There were a few newspaper clippings that Chico had been able to find, through which we came to know that Max had killed his celebrity wife back in the day. Max had told Alex about how his relationship with his partner deteriorated, and how he had abandoned his son as he felt that was the best thing he could have done. Max accepted that he got into a relationship with Christine when they both were quite young and they didn’t know how to go about it. Max told Alex that he and Christine started using drugs, which literally made them their own enemy. But what Max didn’t tell Alex was that Christine, one fine day, had randomly disappeared when they were vacationing at Malibu Canyon. Max had come to the island and changed his identity because the authorities were probably still looking out for him. We didn’t get to know what happened to his son, if he just left him someplace or if he too was murdered that day. Alex got a bit suspicious of Max when the local police came to the island and told them that Chico had been missing for days, and that they had found his boat in the sea. Alex got a bit worried, and she didn’t like how casually Max took everything. Deep down, she knew that Max had something to do with the disappearance, but obviously she couldn’t say anything until she got some evidence to prove it.
Was Alex able to escape from the island?
Alex had been cheated on in her previous relationship, as she came to realize much later that the man she was dating was actually married. But it was nothing compared to what Max did to her. She felt as if she was living with a stranger, and she knew nothing about him. It didn’t take long for Alex to find Chico’s dead body, buried near her cottage. She tried to escape from the island, as she was petrified of what Max might end up doing to her. But Max got the better of her, and he held her captive, drugging her at regular intervals so that she wasn’t able to escape. But then there came a time at the end of Haunted Heart when it seemed like Alex had resigned herself to her fate. She stopped resisting, and she decided to cooperate with Max. Max freed her, and one day while having breakfast he noticed two things: the knife on the table was missing, and there was this look in Alex’s eyes that told him how she felt about him. Alex saw Max as a monster, and he knew that she would never be able to love him again. He told her that she needed to end his miserable existence, as he was too tired of dealing with the baggage of his past. He came close to Alex and asked her to stab him with the knife. The film never really got into the intricacies of what happened in Max’s past, but the man knew he had done bad things and that he would have to pay for his sins. Alex sat beside Max while the latter succumbed to his stab wound. Later Alex burned down the entire cottage and waited for the police to arrive to rescue her. I don’t know if she would end up telling the world that Max was Paul Fyre, the criminal who was on the run for so many years, or if she would like people to remember him as the quiet and kind restaurant owner who took good care of his employees and made the most elegant dishes that one could die for.
