Patrick Heusinger Movies
Classically trained thespian Patrick Heusinger graduated from actors' Mecca Juilliard. He then entered feature filmdom on an offbeat note as a younger version of one of the main characters, Lars, in Sweet Land (2005), director Ali Selim's unique take on period Americana. For his next major project, Joy Dietrich's family drama Tie a Yellow Ribbon (2007), Heusinger ascended to much higher billing; the motion picture concerns the complex and often tenuous relationships that transpire between three Asian American immigrant women. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide- 2007
Joy Dietrich's drama Tie a Yellow Ribbon relates the friendships between three young Asian-American woman. Jenny was adopted from her Korean home by a white family, and she carries around great anger for the way she was treated by her adopted family. She moves in with Bea, an innocent who is easily taken advantage of by a number of different men. Their apartment is across the street hall from Sandy, a wallflower who has difficulty expressing herself in any way at all. The film points out how each of them are acting out in self-defeating ways in response to their upbringings, and shows why the suicide rate among young Asian-American women is higher than it is for other groups. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
A European exile finds herself a stranger in a strange land when she comes to the United States in this independent romantic comedy-drama. As a man ponders what to do with his family's estate after the death of his grandmother, he thinks back to how she first came to America shortly after World War I. Olaf (Tim Guinee) is a Norwegian-American farmer looking for a wife to share his home on the Minnesota prairie, and with eligible women in short supply locally, he sends away for a mail-order bride. Inge Ottenberg (Elizabeth Reaser) soon arrives at Olaf's doorstep, but while she's pretty, smart, and amiable, he's taken aback to discover she's not Norwegian but German, which after several years of anti-German propaganda does not make her popular with her new neighbors. Inge isn't very good with English, making it even harder to keep her background a secret, and the local pastor, Rev. Sorrensen (John Heard), is so outraged at the presence of a presumed Hun he refuses to perform their wedding. But Inge struggles to make friends with her new neighbors, in particular Olaf's best friend, Frandsen (Alan Cumming), a gadget fancier whose wife, Brownie (Alex Kingston), is better with mechanical items than he is. In time, Inge's cheerful nature and love of music begin to make an impression on the community as she shares her favorite tunes on her ever-present gramophone. Sweet Land was the first feature film from writer and director Ali Selim. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elizabeth Reaser, Tim Guinee, (more)
