Philip Ridley's first film in 15 years. Ridley spent the intervening years writing plays and children's books.
Shown at Leeds International Film Festival (UK) on Saturday 7th November, 2009 as part of its "Day of the Dead" horror film marathon.
Despite much of Philip Ridley's work as a writer being inspired by his home turf of London's East-End, "Heartless" is actually his first feature film as director that takes place in this location. The stories of his previous feature films, The Reflecting Skin (1990) and The Passion of Darkly Noon (1995), were set in the USA.
When Jamie is walking past a bar to take out the garbage, a rock version of the song Jim Sturgess sings, "Heartless", is playing.
The songs that play a central part in the film were all written by director Philip Ridley and Nick Bicât, and were conceived as an essential element of the film at the script stage; they represent a continuation of the songwriting collaboration begun in 1995 with the film 'The Passion of Darkly Noon', when they wrote the song 'Who Will Love Me Now' for PJ Harvey and the song 'Look What You've Done to my Skin' for Gavin Friday.