Purple Hearts: A Marriage of Convenience

Purple Hearts, a 2022 Netflix film that is set to be the most watched film on the platform this year unfolds how two people with opposite political perspectives and different cultural backgrounds came together under the pretence of marriage of convenience due to their similarity in financial incapacity.

Based on a novel with the same title written by Tess Wakefield, the two hour film stars Sofia Carson famously known from Disney’s Descendants who plays Cassie Salazar, an aspiring singer alongside Nicholas Galitzine who plays Luke Morrow, a soon to be deployed U.S Marine officer.

The two met at a bar Cassie was working at a few nights before Luke was deployed to Iraq. The writers did not waste a second to showcase Luke, a recovering drug addict as a conservative with a complex political point of view and Cassie, a child of an illegal immigrant with a progressive life perspective working several jobs to put a roof over her head as well to cover for her medical insurance.

While she was bartending, Cassie’s phone alarm went off, it was time for her insulin shot.

She signed off work temporarily and ran for her medicine. As she placed her purse on the passenger seat of her car, a stash of her apartment’s final notices from the landlord were flashed. Reaching out for her insulin dosage, Cassie noticed that she was almost running out of it. Her first move was to visit a dispensary for a refill but she withdrew when she was told she had to pay 500 US dollars.

On the other hand, during one of his morning runs, Luke met Johnno (Anthony Ippolito), a friend from his past life when he was a drug addict who reminded him of 15,000 usd debt. With the financial desperation that built in both of them at the time, the two decided to get married without consulting their families so that they would both benefit on both ends; Cassie gets medical insurance and Luke pays his debt. The arrangement came with both parts faking to be in love in the eyes of other people so that they would secure the benefits.

Their marriage witness was Luke’s fellow marine officer and Cassie’s friend, Frankie Mubuthia (Chosen Jacobs).

A day after their marriage, Luke left for Iraq. Their acting kept going during Luke’s deployment. The two sent each other emails and they called each other on video. Little did they know that this bonded them. While he was in Iraq, Cassie wrote a song ‘come back home’ inspired by her fake husband and she performed the song for him as well as the other US marines.

During his deployment, Luke got wounded and this made Cassie, his primary caretaker when he was sent back home. Cassie had to inform his brother but mistakenly knocked on Luke’s father’s door since both of the two went by the name ‘Jacob Morrow’.

It was at this moment, Cassie had to introduce herself to Luke’s father, a former marine vet as his son’s wife. When his family came through his ward’s door, Luke’s jaw was on floor and his eyes held his father’s eyes since he thought it would only be Cassie visiting him.

During the time he was receiving his treatment, Luke was forced to live with Cassie under Cassie’s roof to avoid being charged for court martial and the two fell in love.

Being away from deployment made Luke unable to keep paying his debt to Johnno. He started receiving threats from him that his fake marriage would be unveiled if he took longer to pay his debt.

This very debt later unravelled Luke’s and Cassie’s fake marriage to Cassie’s mother as well as the marines. A few hours afterwards, Luke was taken to a military base for his hearing and was later sent to serve his sentence for six months.

A few minutes before he left, both Cassie and him confessed their love to each other and promised to wait for one another during the time Luke served his sentence.

As much as it is a romance film and the performance of the songs exceedingly good, It was not necessary for the writers to throw in Cassie’s musicals whenever they deemed necessary because this made the main themes of the film to be spotted easily.

I loved how the film was able to display the nemesis situation between the two main characters into life. However there were points in the film where their relationship looked like it was surreal as in off the off script.

I rate it a solid 6 out of 10.

What they said:

“Purple Hearts” had the potential to be a poignant melodrama — or maybe a sharp satire — about the options available to those left behind by the U.S. health care system. Instead, the film wallows in contrived plots and subplots, made worse by the dearth of chemistry between the two leads. Claire Shaffer. nytimes.com

For a film that ventures into so many political themes, this feels like a cowardly adventure, and the audience is left with a cookie-cutter Netflix book-to-movie adaptation. Pallavi Keswani. Thehindu.com

The nice part of Purple Hearts is that it moves away from the cheesiness of other romance films. Instead, it brings some real-life issues and blends them into the neat little story that Purple Hearts tells its audience in just over two hours. Jordan Lyon. readysteadycut.com

While Carson and Galitzine have good romantic chemistry together, that isn’t enough to make up for a lackluster narrative. Natasha Alvar. culturedvultures.com

“Purple Hearts” succeeds in making America’s political left and right equally irritating at first, but you know you’re in a country leaning heavily towards communism when both sides team up and start trying to game the system. Not a bad watch at all. Mark Jackson. Epochtimes.com