47/32
After years of separation, the star-crossed lovers find that every path they take leads them back together
Chronology
Clotaire, a rebellious local teenager, falls in love with his classmate Jackie, but gang violence takes him down a darker and more destructive path. Beating Hearts was the lowest-rated film in the main competition of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival by French and international critics, who complained that the film was too long, full of clichés, misogynistic and copied several classic American films, which are a love story that was not believable and that two the adult leads had no chemistry and were overshadowed by two teenagers playing younger versions of their characters. Several critics and regular viewers have also questioned why this film was selected for the main competition at Cannes when there were better films out of competition or in secondary sections that could have taken its place. The jury gave this film a rating of 1.4 out of 4 stars, while the jury for Chaos Reign at Cannes gave the film a rating of 0.9 out of 4 stars and the Ioncinema jury gave it a rating of 1.6.
out of 5 stars
In Metacritic’s article on the best and worst films of Cannes 2024, Beating Hearts was listed first as a “disappointment”. One of the characters wears a ceramic Rolex Daytona in the 1990s, but the watch wasn’t released until 2016. Mes Mains Music by Gilbert Bécaud Text by Pierre Delanoë. The first part with the children is quite good.
The rest of the film, the second act, is terrible
The film should have ended there for the sake of the audience. And Gilles Lellouche would make one of the best French teen romances of the decade. Actors François Civil and Adèle Exarchopoulos lack chemistry, their acting in this film is bland and uncompromising. I suspect both actors will have to start re-evaluating their own careers in French cinema when two newcomers Mallory Wanecque and Malik Frikah eclipse them and steal the show in this mediocre and confusing film.
Stylized and tacky male look
At first glance, the film seems to be similar to a modern version of The Count of Monte Cristo… I mean the old story of a wronged young rebel who returns to seek revenge and find his beloved. However, it alludes to exaggerated and caricatured toxic masculinity. And in the middle and at the end of the second act, the plot finally loses its credibility.
What we have already seen
The problem with all of this is the film’s strange determination to claim originality in every shot it offers without ever once achieving it. Whenever he comes to a decision, he always opts for the most formal, the most obvious. And so, it repeats, for three hours the closest to the French blockbuster, with good marketing and public relations, this is what the French public will see this year.