If you thought Titanic was the best thing since slice bread, then this film is probably not to for you. This is not your typical popcorn movie fare. When you watch a Nicholas Roeg film, you are walking into a dark world populated with individuals with fractured psyches, desperate lives and dark motives. Everything from his distinct use of visual metaphors to his trademark dramatic camera zooms to his choice of eclectic, but darkly dramatic subject matter typifies Roeg's cinematic universe. His long trajectory as a filmmaker goes back to the early 60's where he began as a camera operator and eventually became one of the most visually unique cinematographers in the business. He made his debut as a director in 1970, co-directing with Donald Cammell, the controversial film Performance, starring James Fox and Mick Jagger in his feature film debut. From then on, straight up to Cold Heaven, Roeg has maintained his eclectic cinematic style of filmmaking working outside of the studio system. This film stars Roeg's then, wife, Theresa Russell as Maria, the confused, conflicted yet unfaithful wife of Alex, played by Mark Harmon in an eerily understated performance. There are also supporting roles by Talia Shire as the mysterious nun and James Russo as Maria's lover. If you like your films to be a bit challenging, if you have some appreciation for the visually abstract, if you are keen on dark psychological cinema with a unique perspective in the vein of David Lynch or David Cronenberg, then Cold Heaven may be up your alley.

After reading the other tepid reviews and comments, I felt I had to come to bat for this movie.Roeg's films tend to have little to do with one another, and expecting this one to be like one of his you liked is probably off the mark.What this film is is a thoughtful and unabashed look at religious faith. The only other film like it-in terms of its religious message-would have to be Tolkin's `The Rapture.'I am astonished that anyone could say the story is muddled or supernatural. It is a simple movie about Catholic faith, miracles, and redemption--though you would never guess it till the end. It is also the only movie I can think of whose resolution turns, literally, on a pun.As a (happily) fallen Catholic myself, I know what the movie is about, and I find a sort of fondness in its ultimate innocence about the relation between God and man. But if you are not familiar with the kind of theology on which the film is based, then it will go right over you head.As a film-as opposed to a story-`Cold Heaven' it is not ground-breaking. While `The Rapture' is heavy with pictorial significance and cinematic imagery, `Cold Heaven' downplays its own cinematic qualities. There are no striking shots, no edgy effects, no attempts to fit the content to the form. It is workmanlike shooting, but subdued. Nor does it have dialogue or acting to put it in a class of high drama. It is a simple story that unfolds simply. It may seem odd; but at the end the mystery is revealed. It looks ambiguous; but with a single line the ambiguity vanishes in a puff of Catholic dogma.In this regard, `Cold Heaven' has at its heart exactly the same sort of thing that drives a movie like `The Sting,' or `The Sixth Sense,' or `Final Descent,' or Polanski's `A Pure Formality.' All of these are films with a trick up their sleeves. They may frustrate you along the way, but they have a point-an obvious one, indeed--but the fun is, at least in part, in having been taken in.Still, even if it seems like little more than a shaggy dog story with a punch line, it is worth watching for way it directs-and misdirects-you. Try it-especially if you are, or have ever been, a Catholic.

That the release of this film by director Nicolas Roeg and starring his wife Theresa Russell was delayed for 2 years says a lot about its perceived commercial prospects. The Roeg/Russell partnership's previous titles - Bad Timing, Eureka, Insignificance, and Track 29 - were a good warning, where Russell has been better served by other directors, and Roeg's interest in fractured narrative has left audiences in a quandary.The material here is based on a novel by Brian Moore, which is an exploration of Catholic faith, but the screenplay by Allan Scott makes this seem ludicrous eg The Virgin Mary is seen by a convent, asking for the "building of a sanctuary", and the idea of a dead man coming back to life being a "demonic possession" is dismissed by a priest since "Life and death belong to God, but everything else is ours to decide". We can tell Roeg isn't really interested in providing an explanation to poor Russell, whose Los Angeles pathologist husband Mark Harmon, is supposedly killed in a boating accident during a holiday in Mexico (the book had the holiday in France), when the conclusion is weightless. Much is made of Russell as an unfaithful wife and how it is often the disbelievers that are visited by God, but when we are told of the real meaning of The Virgin Mary's message, it is laughably trite. Roeg uses Moore's plot as a supernatural excuse to present his editing flourishes, with cross-cutting between sleeping Russell, her married lover James Russo, and Harmon in the morgue; Russell and Russo having sex cut against Russo and his wife Julie Carmen fighting; and Roeg's big one, Russell on a Carmel clifftop as The Virgin Mary makes an apocalyptic appearance whilst Russell rolls around in the dirt. The boating accident scene is pleasingly underscored with the music of Stanley Myers, though we get water on the camera, interiors are generally underlit with matching muffled dialogue and Russell's whispered thoughts on the soundtrack, Harmon wears pancake makeup and spits blood, and there is a subjective camera shot with a white veiling. However on the plus side is a scene where Russell is surrounded by butterflies, her Del A Dey-Jones hats, her willingness to appear overweight in a bikini, and the remarkably unmannered performance of Russo. An indication of Roeg's touch is when Russell tells a priest of her vision of The Virgin Mary, where Roeg undermines Russell's acting by cut-aways to the priest and long shots away from her as she paces.

I fear that with this movie and the stultifying Two Deaths, that Roeg has slipped semi-comatose into semi-retirement.I just hope that he can produce one final great classic that will sit alongside, Bad Timing, Performance, Eureka,Walkabout and The Man Who Fell To Earth in his mighty cannon.