As I write this, there is one review for The Heartbreak Kid on the IMDb (soon to be two!). One. A good film that did well in its native Australia, good box office and reviews, spawned a TV spinoff (Heartbreak High), good looking stars, talking points, teachable points, well shot, well acted and written. What’s the problem?
I suspect it’s the lack of shame on the part of its female protagonist, Cristina Papadopoulos, a 22-year-old teacher in an Australian high school who falls for one of her pupils, 17-year-old Nick Polides, and embarks on a wild and torrid affair with him.
Claudia Karvan, who was 19 when she played Cristina, has spent good chunks of her subsequent career – this came out in 1993 – making apologetic noises on behalf of a character she played. The fact that interviewers are still asking her about the role decades later demonstrates that Karvan got it right all those years ago. This is a story about love across some barrier, like all well engineered romances. And it asks precisely the right question – does love trump all, really, when it comes right down to it?
Co-writing with Richard Barrett, who penned the original play, director Michael Jenkins spends a good amount of time painting his two lead characters. Chris, “Papa” to the kids, is an intelligent, outgoing young woman being rushed towards the altar by her fiancé Dimitri (Steve Bastoni) and his family, Greek immigrants like hers. Nick (Alex Dimitriades) is also from a Greek immigrant background. His dad is a former footballer who once played for the Greek national team but now works on the Ford production line, while Nick is an antsy student who wants to play soccer at the school where Aussie Rule Football is king.
High expectations, stultifying domestic set-ups, the unwritten injunction not to throw away this golden ticket to a better life in a new country, Jenkins and Barrett get it all in, particularly in Chris’s case. Nick is more schematically drawn – handsome, rebellious, a bull at a gate.
The situations and issues pile up. The oppressive school atmosphere, exemplified by nasty and small-minded sports teacher Brian Southgate (an excellent William McInnes). The suffocating home atmosphere of Chris and Dimitri’s extended families. Chris, subordinate to her future husband at home, but in charge in the classroom. A touch of class politics in the obvious disparity between comfortable Chris and the more obviously blue-collar Nick. A touch of racial politics in the refusal of the school to let the immigrant kids play soccer.
There are nods to authenticity, like using actual students from the school where it was shot as extras, but on the whole this is a soft-edged drama, which is probably a good thing given that this is incendiary material. Karvan ties it all together and makes it fragrant but rises to the occasion at three key moments – Chris waiting for Nick to show up, knowing this is the occasion when they’re going to have sex; Chris being confronted by Nick’s dad, George (Nico Lathouris), about what’s been going on; Chris finally having it out with fiancé Dimitri and making her lunge for independence.
In each case Karvan skilfully gives us a conflicted Chris who is being tugged in various directions by competing forces. There is an age difference (five years on screen, though the actors are only about 18 months apart in real life) and there is most obviously the breaking of the bond of trust between teacher and student, and teacher and parent.
Like “love conquers all”, “feel the fear and do it anyway” is another of those guiding principles that The Heartbreak Kid tilts at. Should Chris “do it anyway”? Is heart over head always the right thing to do? This is quite a subversive movie, really.
The Heartbreak Kid – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2025
