BEATING HEARTS Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Gilles Lellouche
Stars: Francois Civil, Adele Exarchopoulos, Malik Frikah, Mallory Wanecque, Benoit Poelvoorde, Alain Chabat.
A hit at the recent French Film Festival, Beating Hearts is both a gritty rollercoaster coming of age story and tragic love story about star crossed lovers that spans some twenty years. Actor turned director Gilles Lellouche (the comedy Sink Or Swim, etc) drew inspiration from the classic Romeo And Juliet, West Side Story and the films of Martin Scorsese to shape this melodrama. The film is a loose adaptation of Neville Thompson’s 1997 best-selling novel Jackie Loves Jonser OK?. Lellouche cowrote the film with Ahmed Hamidi and Audrey Diwan (The Good Teacher, etc) and they have relocated the story from Ireland to a small town in France. Lellouche directs the material with lots of energy and style.
The film is set in the suburbs of a northern city of France and follows the romance between the studious but troubled Jackie (Mallory Wanecque) and Clotaire (Malik Frikah), a kid from the wrong side of the tracks. The pair first meet outside her school. Jackie lives at home with her gentle and protective father (a sympathetic performance from Alain Chabat). She has been expelled from her previous school for insolence, and on the first day of her new school she encounters Clotaire who hangs around outside with his group of friends. Clotaire is a bit of a rebel and a troublemaker, and a product of a housing estate where he lives with his working-class family. But somehow Jackie finds herself drawn towards him, and a romance develops between the two.
Clotaire is soon drawn into a life of crime with a criminal gang led by the local crime boss and drug dealer La Brosse (Benoit Poelvoorde, from Coco Before Chanel, etc). During a heist a guard is killed and Clotaire takes the fall for la Brosse’s son. He is sent to jail.
Twelve years later Clotaire (now played by Francois Civil, recently seen as D’Artagnan in the lavish adaptation of The Three Musketeers) is released and is welcomed back into the gang which is now run by La Brosse’s son. Meanwhile Jackie (now played by Adele Exarchopoulos, from Blue Is The Warmest Colour, etc) has married to Jeffrey (Vincent Lacoste), a suave and smooth-talking car salesman who soon turns abusive.
Beating Hearts is propelled by a fast pace and a sense of energy and a great soundtrack that features Billy Idol, Foreigner, New Order, Madonna, The Clash and Jay-Z. There is even a sliding doors moment late in the film that changes everything. Laurent Tangy’s cinematography is superb, and he gives the material lots of visual flourishes. Early in the film there is a superb, stylish shot of cars driving around a circular car park, which is stunning.
Despite the length (a running time of 160 minutes) I was not conscious of the time. However, the first part of the film following the two lovers as teens is the more engaging while the second half seems to lack the same energy and has a darker tone. There is an electric chemistry between the two young leads that drives the early parts of the film. However, there is less rapport between Civil and Exarchopoulos as the adult Clotaire and Jackie.
Beating Hearts is almost American in style and aesthetic, and it would easily lend itself to a Hollywood remake, especially if a filmmaker of the calibre of Scorsese tackled it.
★★★☆
