This endearing and unusual movie won the Australian Film Institute's 1982 Best Film of the Year Award. Everything about Lonely Hearts has a bittersweet truth to it. Peter (Norman Kaye) is a 50-year-old bachelor whose mother has recently died. He is a piano tuner, and his only friend is a faithful dog. Patricia (Wendy Hughes) is a shy, sexually repressed bank clerk whose puritanical and domineering parents have suffocated her sprit.
These two lonely hearts meet through a dating service and slowly bring out the best in each other. As an actress in an amateur theatrical group, Patricia begins to bloom as a woman; Peter is almost unhinged by his desire to bed her. Patience is all important — love comes in its own sweet time. Norman Kaye is very winning as the earnest bachelor and Wendy Hughes manages to be loveable in the end. Don't miss this fine "little movie" directed by Paul Cox.