Hungry Hearts

Hungry Hearts is a 2014 Italian drama film directed by Saverio Costanzo. It was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 71st Venice International Film Festival. At Venice, Adam Driver and Alba Rohrwacher won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor and Best Actress respectively. It was also screened in the Special Presentations section of the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. Plot Jude (Adam Driver) is a gentle, pragmatic engineer living in New York City. In unfortunate circumstances, he becomes trapped in a restaurant bathroom with Mina (Alba Rohrwacher), who works at the Italian embassy. Despite this equally awkward and funny first encounter, Jude and Mina begin a relationship and move in together. A few months later, Mina wakes to a phone call from her employer. They notify her that she has been transferred and will be relocated to her native Italy in two months, separating her from Jude. Upon learning of the impending transfer, Jude is deeply upset, and later in the day initiates a sexual encounter. Against Mina's wishes, Jude ejaculates inside of her, and Mina later discovers she is pregnant. Jude and Mina are married at a beachside cafe. After the reception, a man shoots a deer on the boardwalk outside. Mina is distraught after witnessing the unnecessary and careless death of an animal, and is bothered by recurring nightmares about it. As the pregnancy begins, Mina fails to maintain a stable diet. At a friend's art exhibit, Mina wanders outside to the patio and faints. She is taken to the hospital, where an ultrasound is performed and Mina and Jude are informed that their baby is not receiving adequate nutrients to grow. The couple return home, where Mina expresses a distrust of modern medicine. She decides to employ only alternative medicine, going so far as to visit a psychic who informs Mina that her fetus is an Indigo child. Trusting her maternal instincts, Jude does not initially intervene in Mina's self-inflicted undernourishment and shunning of western treatment options.