The Heart Exposed

The Heart Exposed (French: Le Cœur découvert) is a Canadian drama film, directed by Jean-Yves Laforce and released in 1987.[1] Written by Michel Tremblay as an adaptation of his own novel The Heart Laid Bare (Le Cœur découvert), the film centres on the relationship between Jean-Marc (Gilles Renaud) and Mathieu (Michel Poirier), two gay men who meet and fall in love despite a ten-year age difference and the complication that Mathieu is the father of a five-year-old son.[2]

The film's cast also includes Olivier Chasse, Louisette Dussault, Amulette Garneau, Louise Rinfret, Pierre Houle and Robert Lalonde.

The film premiered at the Montreal World Film Festival in 1987,[3] but was distributed primarily as a television film broadcast by Télévision de Radio-Canada in November.[4] It was later screened at the Frameline Film Festival in 1989, where it won the Audience Award.[5]

Thomas Waugh, writing for Cinema Canada, stated that "It is a fine pleasure to see this warmhearted little gem, not only because of positive representation of gays in this year when everyone's gushing about Night Zoo, a violent misogynist derivative film that exults in queer-baiting and queer-smashing, but because one of our finest writers has made another all-too-rare visit to the screen."[6]