Heat (1995)

directed by Michael Mann

Sophia Mazzella

“Heat is women’s cinema!” 

A college friend and I used to love yelling this phrase at each other at any opportunity. We got a kick out of the idea that Michael Mann's self-serious 1995 epic crime drama starring, created by, and centering on men was actually designed for us.

It wasn’t just that we femme, queer girls loved Heat with fervor, all two hours and fifty minutes of it. Something about the story of career criminal Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) and the relentless Major Crimes lieutenant pursuing him, Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino), touched us on a deep level. These men were intelligent, driven, and meticulous. They were also incapable of intimacy.

When I began my freshman year of college, I couldn’t wait to “find my people.” I’d been the token film nerd at my sixty-people-per-grade, all-girls high school. My friends listened as I explained Steven Spielberg’s impact on pop culture. They tagged along to the movie theater sometimes when I was determined to see every Best Picture nominee. They acted in the films I directed around the school hallways, but none of them got it. I couldn’t wait to be among a sea of people who cared about cinema as much as I did. People who’d become my collaborators, friends, and even lovers. I liked the idea of a film school boyfriend who was a cinematographer. I fantasized about falling in love and getting great photos out of it.

When I arrived at my film school orientation, things didn’t quite match the rosy image I’d pictured. The realization hit me like a truck about a week into school when I was sitting around some film boy’s dorm room, the seventh wheel to three newly formed couples. The friend who’d brought me there sat across the room flirting, while I sat on a desk chair across from two couples cuddled on top of a twin bed. The two boys on the bed were philosophizing about the cinematic value of Lord of the Rings, as their dates politely nodded. They never stopped to let the girls get a word in.

“I LIKE LORD OF THE RINGS TOO,” I stated loudly, inserting myself into the discourse with some observations about Gollum. A nonexistent occurrence at all-girls school, this was one of the many times I would have to push my way into a conversation to prove to film-obsessed frat boys that I had an opinion worth sharing. To this day, there’s nothing that I hate more than being talked down to about film by someone whose favorite movie is Pulp Fiction or Inception (the two most unoriginal choices for men born after 1996). I watched the girls on the twin bed, baffled they could stay silent, smiling and stoking the boys’ egos. I may have gone home alone at the end of the night, but no one could dispute my taste and expansive knowledge of the Peter Jackson trilogy.

Over the next year, I threw myself into participating in lecture discussions and tried to get invited to film production parties. I wanted all the popular “film bros” in my class to know my name. Not because they were ever going to be “my people,” but because I wanted to prove I was among the best of the best in our class.

Part of what makes Heat such a fun watch is that both Neil and Vincent are exceptional at what they do. Vincent frequently says “these guys are good” when analyzing Neil’s crimes with his team. When Neil pays for dirt on Vincent, he even hears “Hanna likes you. Thinks you’re some kind of star.” Neil is also warned about Vincent’s long, impressive resume taking down major crews. His associate says, “Three marriages. You think he likes staying home? He’s one of those guys out there prowling around all night. Dedicated.”

Neil points out several times throughout the film that to achieve his level of excellence, there can be nothing else in his life. In the middle of the film, Vincent and Neil sit down for coffee, both aware of the other’s existence yet standing on opposite sides of the law. Neil recounts to Vincent, “A guy told me one time, ‘Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in thirty seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.’” This is Neil’s creed. It leaves little room for love and intimacy, which Neil becomes increasingly desperate for as the film goes on.

I too became increasingly desperate for a romantic connection my sophomore year of college after a year of “waiting for my person” yielded no results. Aggressively asserting my intelligence with the boys in my class seemed to get in the way of our flirting, and the wannabe DP I had a horrible crush on barely knew I existed.

I was about to turn twenty and determined to lose my virginity by any means necessary, including Tinder. I wanted so badly to prove that I was capable. Ever ambitious, I hated the thought of being behind. One night, after a student drag show, I made my way to the dorm room of a freshman I’d been messaging for a few days. As soon as he walked out of the elevator to let me into his building, I knew it was a bad idea. I wasn’t physically attracted to him, but I remained determined to complete my mission. Even the ultimate cosmic warning, an enormous Pulp Fiction poster above his bed, couldn’t make me turn back. He put on a movie—an unfunny James Bond parody I’d never heard of. Ten minutes in, I kissed him just so we could turn it off. What followed was two minutes of horribly painful sex, before my brain finally flipped a switch. I threw on my gold jumpsuit as fast as humanly possible, telling him I’d just realized “this is not where I’m meant to be right now.” For his part, he tried to reassure me by insisting he wanted to give my virginity back to me so I could lose it again with someone else.

As I walked home through the student parking lot, I laughed out loud at the absurdity of it all. I had been so fixated on the intangible understanding of the world I imagined would come with sex, and now here I was, exactly the same. Alone in the parking lot at 3 am. Sore from a man whose last name I didn’t know who’d been fingering my inner thigh. I hadn’t gained insight or maturity or love or real connection. What I got was a funny story.

I love using bad dates as writing fodder for screenplays. They make great cringe comedy material and fantastic anecdotes for parties. I find the stories far more valuable and satisfying than the actual experiences. Intentionally or not, I’ve amassed a body count that features strangers, loose acquaintances, and a rare friend. Sometimes sex has been fun and spontaneous. Other times transactional and hollow. Rarely has it felt intimate. There’s always a layer of separation between me and my partners. In theory, I’m exposed. Physically naked and vulnerable. But it’s just a front, because to really let myself go, I’d have to let them know what’s going on in my head.

Romance is as crucial to Heat’s success as its heist scenes. Neil and Vincent spend the majority of their time face to face talking about their relationships. Vincent’s third marriage hangs on by a thread because he frequently sacrifices time with his wife Laura to pursue criminals like Neil. She cheats on him just to get his attention and accuses him of passing through their life. When we meet Neil, he lives in the most bleak ocean front apartment one could imagine, completely empty of furniture, personality, or anyone to share his life with. He tells one of his crew members that he can’t understand why someone would choose to have a family when their livelihood requires them to always be willing to walk away. When Neil meets and falls for a lonely graphic designer, Eady, he begins to soften. She forces him to confront what’s been missing in his life. Neil starts to imagine a future with Eady, and even invites her to skip town after a big score.

Both men cling to these relationships but refuse to make the sacrifices necessary to sustain them. At their coffee shop meeting, Neil asks Vincent how he expects to maintain a marriage while chasing Neil, who is always on the move. Vincent asks if Neil would really be willing to walk out on his woman with no goodbye if he were on the verge of getting caught. “That’s the discipline,” Neil replies. “It’s that or we both better go do something else, pal.”

Vincent says that he doesn’t know how to do anything else. “Don’t much want to either.” Neil agrees with a smile and the men go on to discuss the meaning of their dreams.

I know some people who treat dating like a job. Play the numbers game on the apps and go to singles events. I’ve tried shooting my shot at parties. Sending that risky text. Sliding into DMs. But even if ambition could build me a connection, I’ve already got something in my life to chase after. I’ve spent all summer saying my greatest love affair is with my novel, since it’s been the primary object of my thoughts, energy, and time.

All the women in Heat, like many women I’ve known in life, sacrifice for their partners without getting the same in return. Ambition is no longer a dirty word for women, but it’s not exactly desired. As I get older, I see my peers compromise for their relationships. Where they live and work become joint decisions. I see friends becoming homemakers and making long term plans, but struggle to fathom it for myself. With inconsistent gig work and sixty-plus hour work weeks on film sets, how can I let my time be anything but my own? How can I factor around someone else when I’m constantly hustling, writing, and trying to make it toward that big break? A recent work crush told me he feels he can’t have a social life while working: “One has to go.” It promptly ended our flirtationship.

Even if I were lucky enough to find a connection, I can’t help but wonder if there’s enough of me left to give after what I give to my job, writing, family, and friends. Some days I don’t know if a connection is even what I want. I write better without a crush and bad dates make good stories. If forced to make the choice, how could I choose someone else over myself and my craft? Like Neil and Vincent, I wouldn’t want to.

Ultimately, both Neil and Vincent choose their careers over their relationships. It feels wrong to call what they do a “career” when what they’re chasing seems more like a calling or compulsion. In two parallel scenes, Vincent and Neil promise never to leave the women they love. Then, when Vincent gets a page that Neil has resurfaced, it only takes him thirty seconds to leave Laura alone at the hospital after a family tragedy. He tells her, “All I am is what I’m going after.” Once they both hear that truth out loud, his leaving is inevitable.

Vincent finds Neil, and Neil leaves Eady with no goodbye the second he sees Vincent around the corner. The two run through an airplane tarmac until Vincent shoots Neil in the chest. It’s a bleak, heartbreaking ending, but it’s also the part of the movie that makes me feel like it was made just for me.

If some of us are only what we’re going after, the best we can hope for is to find someone going after the same thing. Vincent and Neil are two of a kind. They understand each other better than their romantic partners ever could. They may be doomed to isolate themselves, and consumed fully by the chase, but there is mutual respect between them. They have the kind of ever-elusive, inexplicable intimate connection most of us are still searching for.

A person who sees us completely and is still willing to hold our hand.

Sophia Mazzella (she/her) is an essayist, screenwriter, and novelist. A born and raised New Yorker, she briefly swapped cities to earn a Cinema and Media Studies degree at the University of Southern California. Sophia currently works as a producer’s assistant. Her writing has been published in Byline, Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, and 20 to Life Magazine. Her work can also be found on her Substack, “preface to my memoirs,” at https://sophiamazzella.substack.com/.