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Random Hearts (novel)

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Random Hearts
Directed bySydney Pollack
Written byWarren Adler (novel)
Darryl Ponicsan (adaptation)
Kurt Luedtke (screenplay)
David Rayfiel uncredited
Produced byMartin Jurow & Marykay Powell
StarringHarrison Ford
Kristin Scott Thomas
CinematographyPhilippe Rousselot
Edited byWilliam Steinkamp
Music byDave Grusin
Distributed byColumbia Pictures
Release dates
October 8, 1999
Running time
133 min.
LanguageEnglish
Random Hearts
Cover to Stonehouse edition of Random Hearts
Cover to Stonehouse edition of Random Hearts
AuthorWarren Adler
LanguageEnglish
GenreFiction
PublisherStonehouse
Publication date
1984
Publication placeUSA
Media typeHardcover/Paperback/E-Text
Pages293 pages
ISBNISBN 0025002902 (hardcover) Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character

Random Hearts is a 1984 novel by American author Warren Adler. In 1999, the novel was made into a motion picture directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas.

Plot summary (novel)

Vivien Simpson, a housewife with a young son, and Edward Davis, an aide to a congressman, had never met before, but soon they would be inseparable. Their respective spouses, Orson and Lily, had been carrying on an affair for some time. The affair abruptly ended when their plane to Miami crashes moments after take off. Vivien believed her husband was off to Paris for business. Edward thought his wife was in L.A. Once the bodies are identified, the knowledge they were traveling together is imparted on Vivien and Edward.

They are consumed with curiosity, but nobody is alive to answer their questions. All that remains of the clandestine love affair is a set of nearly unidentifiable keys which neither Vivien nor Edward knows what they belong to. They center their lives around discovering what their spouses kept from them whilst finding themselves slowly becoming closer to each other.

Film adaptation

In 1999, Random Hearts was adapted into a film of the same name directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas.

The film adaptation loosely follows the story of the novel but many of the characters have been changed. Edward Davis is now Sergeant William 'Dutch' Van Den Broeck, a Washington DC police officer. Vivien Simpson is now Kay Chandler, a wealthy Republican Congresswoman with a teenage daughter. They meet when their spouses, Peyton and Cullen, are killed in a plane crash and realize that they were having an affair. The story evolves around the relationship between the two surviving spouses, as the tragedy envelopes their lives and effects his career as a police officer and her campaign for re-election to Congress.

Reaction

The film, one of Ford's biggest flops, failed both critically and commercially. Budgeted at $64 million, it made $31 million in the US and another $43 million internationally.

Production History

The film was in "development hell" for quite some years, and Kevin Costner had previously been attached to project in the early 1990s.


Primary cast

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