Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

I watched this for a very particular reason: last year I began researching conversions to Islam among Westerners. I found that 75% are women between 15-24. That seemed a bit odd to me...then I read a French report on Islamic extremists--most were, surprisingly, women converts! Then I began thinking about cults...the Manson Family...mostly women...Branch Davidians....mostly women....and so on. Then there is the phenomenon of the kidnapped girls, some of whom had the freedom to run away but refused to do so (Elizabeth Smart, et al.). While watching "Beatles: Eight Days a Week," which is mainly about the concerts the Beatles gave, it struck me that virtually the entire audience was young girls, all hysterical. Why???? Then, when thinking one day about Obama's mother (married a Kenyan student when she was very young, then married an Indonesian), I stumbled across this sub-culture of women who search out exotic locales for sex tourism. It's not a new phenomenon, but I'm not sure when it began-- "Heading South" is supposedly set in 1979. Maybe the sexual revolution of the 1960s unleashed something???This is a good movie in the sense that it at least tries to take a stab at explaining the women's motivations. A second movie, Dutch, 2016, is "Benzess as Usual," where the son of one of these vacation idylls returns to meet his father. In this case, it's Tunisia. But exactly the same thing is going on--older women using younger, poor men for sex. And, as hinted at in "Headed South" in this case the beach boy is taken to the Netherlands and then Switzerland (by different women!). He marries both, but of course it ends badly. A third movie in this genre is "Paradise Love." In this case, it's German women on the beaches of Mombasa. The location changes, the story is the same. There are also numerous youtube videos on this theme. And then of course there are books like "The White Masai" about a young (!) Swiss woman who marries a Masai--and not an educated, Westernized one, but a native from a village living in a mud hut. It's beyond bizarre.

Per Wikipedia, "In 1779, more than 500 Haitian volunteers from Saint-Domingue, Haiti under the command of Comte d'Estaing, fought alongside American colonial troops against the British in the Siege of Savannah, one of the most significant foreign contributions to the American Revolutionary War."In later years, the destinies of the two countries would diverge. Though the United States would endure a tragic civil war, its story would be fairly stable. Haiti would suffer through colonialism, a slave revolution and untold coups.Again per Wikipedia, "In January 1914, British, German and US forces entered Haiti, ostensibly to protect their citizens from civil unrest at the time. In an expression of the Theodore Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, the United States occupied the island in 1915. US Marines were stationed in the country until 1934... Haitian traditionalists, based in rural areas, were highly resistant to American-backed changes, while the urban elites wanted more control. Together they helped gain an end to the occupation in 1934"In the 1970s, "Baby Doc" Duvalier was in power. He and those close to him were alleged to have extracted hundreds of millions of dollars from Haiti's economy. It is during this time that Heading South takes place.The film primarily takes place at a beachfront hotel that caters to tourists. There we meet three women (Brenda, Ellen and Sue) from Canada, Boston and Savannah who consider the location idyllic. It is true that resorts can operate largely separate from their surrounding environments. They can feel like islands, insulated from the usual cares of the world.The hotel serves as the intersection of two cultures. Employees are Haitian, tourists are not. In fact, the three women are there specifically to enjoy what they see as the island's simpler, uninhibited way of life. A young man named Legba represents that lifestyle. Two of them spend their energies and monies on Legba to gain his attentions, sexual and otherwise. The third woman says she is "in love" with Neptune, another native who exchanges favors with her.In the beginning of the film, the viewer is confronted with questions about sexual double standards and women's liberation. Voice-overs and monologues spoken to the camera augment the action, revealing the joys these women experience in their sexual retreat. They are no longer confined by the mores of their home societies. In effect, they operate extra-culturally, unjudged (they think).As the story progresses, we are given glimpses into Legba's life outside the hotel property. We see the surrounding poverty, abuse of power and--through the eyes of an ex-girlfriend--the horrible realities of an oppressive and corrupt regime.In the end, the cultures collide and the illusory existence of the women is brutally exploded. Under tragic circumstances, we see their underlying personalities--dishonest, uncoping, self-conscious and even paranoid. Brenda chooses the only coping mechanism she can perceive--to search for another island.The voice-overs and monologues serve to break up the action of the film. Likewise, forays away from the hotel and some portions that deal with the attitudes and perceptions of the hotel manager disrupt the flow of the film. But that works. It creates a feeling of imbalance that visitors to another culture often experience, reminding us that the story of these three women is not operating in a vacuum.Filmgoers might take different messages from the narrative, which is fine. Questions are raised that the viewer must confront--a real indication that Heading South achieves its purpose.

The movie starts with a brave plot, but then the director does not know how to continue the story. Like most hypocrite viewers that cannot stand the idea of women having sex just for fun (like men do), on the second half of the movie he intends to be "politically correct" by giving a "happy ending" (to men) and a moral teaching (to woman), and to feel better with his own conscience, he finds a way to kill Mr. toy-boy (punishing him for being so "inmoral"). After this, and as opposed to the first half of the film, he shows woman as weak, sweet-hearted, and falling in love all the time, just like most naive men prefer to think about women. Also, to show himself sensible for the world we live in (another typical Hollywood cliché), he tries to condemn Haiti's political situation, but without risking to tell the actual real reasons why this country ended that way ("civilized" countries are mainly responsible). Good start, but a very disappointing ending ..

"Older women are best, because they always think they may be doing it for the last time." Ian Fleming Women in love . . . or lust . . . or longing. Heading South, set in Haiti in the '70's, is paradise for needy but wealthy middle-aged women. Young black men are willing to share their love for either dollars or gifts, while the women get something they can't buy elsewhere: respect and orgasms. It all seems much purer than men seeking young girls in Thailand, yet there is usually trouble in paradise.Three intertwining stories are told into camera of Ellen (Charlotte Rampling), who regularly comes here and has become attached to young Legba (Menothy Cesar); Brenda (Karen Young), who came once before with her husband and now threatens to steal Legba from Ellen; and Sue, an overweight, brassy Canadian. Nothing much happens but some petty jealousiesover Legba, until director Cantet goes outside the circle of thismodest resort where Papa Doc's dictatorship touches quietly on theirlives. In fact, the most powerful part of the film occurs in the opening scene, where a black mother tries to give away her daughter to a prosperous black man in order to avoid the child's being taken from her, as often happens to poor blacks in Haiti.Although a couple of the black men are filmed naked, and Brenda's breasts are revealed after a shower, there is little sex to spice up the film, regardless of the sexy premise. If Heading South had done more with the political and social unrest on the island, as a metaphor for the women's unrest at the resort, there would have been a much more substantial film. We are left with a not very interesting plot bolstered by very interesting and beautiful older actresses, Rampling and Young.