My Feral Heart (2016)

My Feral Heart follows a man who has down syndrome (Luke) after the passing away of his mother. At first, I thought this film would delve into the loss of a loved one from the perspective of a man with mental health issues. Instead, it follows him discovering the world and a wide range of new people for him to interact and meet with. As Luke is taken to the care home he meets a lot of new people (possibly more than he's ever known in his life beforehand) but this leaves Luke to struggle in this new environment. As the film progresses, he meets Pete. Pete was probably my favorite character , I found him more down to earth and relatable than the rest of the cast and even though we didn't see a whole lot of Pete's backstory, we do find out Pete is a lot more troubled than the rest, his mystery also makes him a great supporting character. Following the rest of the plot, Luke's journey leads him to the feral girl, a character (who in my opinion) was a wasted screen time and a bit useless to have in the film, she has more of an uncertainty around her and this leads more to my slight hatred towards her. Going on to production of this film, my biggest despise is of all the unsteady camera work, most of the time during the film the camera is all over the place, hardly any is steady throughout apart from a few scenes. This annoys me because it makes the film a lot tougher to watch, this is on top of the hard-hitting story line the film envelops. If there was use of steady cam or tripods more in the film I would have enjoyed it a whole lot more and feel it would've been a better watch overall. I particularly enjoyed following the scenes when Luke is bonding with everyone, this gives the viewer a warm feeling inside of them but it's also nice seeing Luke's progression as a lead character, he gets on best with the young care-worker, we see her and Luke have very cheerful and light-heated conversations as the film goes on, we see that she really cares for Luke. Pete also helps to bring Luke out of his shell because Pete is willing to open up to Luke about his personal struggles which he is very closed off about with everybody else, including family. On the contrary, I was slightly disappointed on the films ending. Unlike most (solo/stand-alone) films, the ending wraps up many characters story lines and answers most questions that the viewer raised during the viewing. Unfortunately-for me- the film does not. I found that the ending came quickly and ended on very sudden note, creating a large cliffhanger. I feel that this doesn't work and shouldn't be done with a standalone film at all, it raises more questions than I previously had, questions that could only be answered by a worse sequel or very clever screenwriting. To sum up, I found My Feral Heart to be an emotional but touchingly slow drama piece, one that should be that one bit longer and to give us more details on the characters, I would've loved more scenes showing the past of the supporting cast, I also enjoyed the slight humor it had in it, it was most important to Luke and Pete towards their development. I would recommend this film to those who enjoy heartwarming dramas and indies, anyone who likes films that talk about mental health and loss especially would enjoy this film a lot.