Beating Hearts Review: When Young Love Collides with Fate

Gilles Lellouche’s Beating Hearts tells an expansive story of young love with sweeping cinematic flair. It follows Jackie and Clotaire from their chance meeting as teens in 1980s France, where an intense spark ignites between them despite coming from different worlds. Jackie is studious and middle-class, while Clotaire is a reckless, working-class rebel.

Their passion brings color and energy, bursting through every scene. Yet outside forces threaten to tear them apart, as Clotaire falls in with local criminals after leaving school. When a job goes wrong, he’s imprisoned for a decade, separated from Jackie just as their bond was forming.

The film spans this time apart and more, charting the enduring pull two souls feel even after life relentlessly tries to drive them down separate paths. Through dynamic highs and emotional lows, Beating Hearts tells a sweeping story of what young love means to live through, both beautifully intimate and grandly epic in scope.

Young Love in a Blaze of Color

Gilles Lellouche’s Beating Hearts really hits its stride in its early scenes of the first love between Jackie and Clotaire. The film transports us back to northern France in the 1980s, where we meet headstrong teenager Jackie and working-class rebel Clotaire. From the moment these two cross paths, it’s hard not to feel that their passion may lift you right off your seat.

Mallory Wanecque and Malik Frikah own their roles as the rebellious teens, their intense chemistry capturing the thrill and confusion of those initial sparks. Frikah especially shines as the bad boy Clotaire, his roguish charm and vulnerable side drawing Jackie in. When the two fall for each other, Lellouche brings their whirlwind romance to vibrant life through heightened cinematography and a dynamic 80s soundtrack.

Memorable sequences like the couple sharing a sweeping dance in an empty school bathed in blue light or stolen moments kissing amid sun-drenched fields sweep you up in the haze of first love alongside Jackie and Clotaire. You can practically taste their youthful abandon and feel their passion with every heartbeat. Whether they’re riding Clotaire’s motorbike at breakneck speeds or facing dangers together, the young leads immerse you fully in their ecstatic world.

The adolescent portions truly work best thanks to Wanecque and Frikah’s lived-in performances and the lavish style transporting their characters’ euphoria. These scenes remain the most gripping and emotionally engaging part of the film, pulling you deep inside the heady rush of new love against all odds. It’s easy to see why viewers may wish we could stay locked in the thrall of Jackie and Clotaire’s passionate beginnings forever.

Criminal Dreams Derailed

Things start looking grim for young Clotaire after he falls under the influence of local crime boss La Brosse. Working at the oil refinery with his father no longer seems to satisfy the rebellious teen. Perhaps he craves action or respect that holds more danger. Whatever the reason, La Brosse soon draws Clotaire into his criminal operations.

It seems like easy money at first. Clotaire uses his knowledge of the refinery to help La Brosse ambush a payroll delivery. But when things go wrong during the heist, an innocent man loses his life. Ever loyal to his new “family,” Clotaire takes the fall even though he wasn’t the shooter. He’s been sentenced to a lengthy 10-year prison stint for his role in the botched crime.

Clotaire’s incarceration brings his romantic involvement with Jackie to an abrupt halt. Just as their bond was deepening into early adulthood, the legal consequences of his criminal choices forced a decade-long separation. This dramatic pivot does more than part the star-crossed lovers; it sets each character down a completely divergent path.

While Clotaire lives with regret behind bars, Jackie continues her studies. She eventually moves on by marrying another. Their young love flickers out with Clotaire locked away, unable to experience life alongside Jackie for more than half their lives so far. His rash actions with La Brosse swiftly derail the hopeful futures both teenagers may have imagined.

Clotaire’s fateful prison term acts as the fulcrum that splits Beating Hearts’ narrative cleanly in two. It represents the moment where juvenile mistakes spiral disastrously into full-blown consequences, forever changing the lead characters in an instant.

Growing Up and Growing Apart

After a decade behind bars, Clotaire is finally released from prison. But he emerges to find the world has continued to change without him. Now played by François Civil, we see a hardened man hoping to reconnect with his lost love, Jackie.

He wastes no time searching her out, only to receive devastating news. Adele Exarchopoulos takes over the role of Jackie, the passionate teen now a woman navigating adulthood. However, she reveals to Clotaire that she too has moved forward. Jackie is now married with a stable career and home life.

The brief reunion is stiff and awkward. Gone is the whirlwind chemistry of their youth, played with such spark by Mallory Wanecque and Malik Frikah. Exarchopoulos and Civil try valiantly to capture even a fraction of that romance. Yet a decade apart has left both characters guarded, struggling to find footing in a relationship frozen in the past.

Their shy interaction highlights how growing up sometimes means growing apart. Though their feelings still run deep, Jackie and Clotaire are strangers experiencing different realities. The adult leads lack the carefree bond of their younger selves, a difficult act to follow.

While the film strives to reignite their passion, this subplot feels the coldest. The intervening years spent apart have built up an almost insurmountable distance between these star-crossed lovers. Their reunion proves no match for the trials of time and change that have irrevocably altered the hopeful dreamers they once were.

When Passion Fades to Pathos

Beating Hearts eagerly sweeps us into the thrill of new love with Clotaire and Jackie. Yet as reality sets in, the film struggles to maintain that same emotional pulse. When Clotaire goes to prison, the story suddenly spotlights his criminal endeavors far more than Jackie’s interior world. We learn of her life’s changes but are shown little of how she truly feels.

Without exploring Jackie’s deep perspective, the rekindled relationship between the adult leads feels surface-level. Gone is the rich chemistry that elevated their teenage romance. In its place comes an overwrought melodrama, as Clotaire grows erratic, tangling with gangs.

His fixation on revenge and proving himself dominates every scene. But this gritty criminal saga offers shallow substance compared to the nuanced study of young love’s intoxication. Swooping camerawork and a pulsing soundtrack can only do so much to compensate. They provide aesthetic flair, not real emotional connection.

As Clotaire spirals, the film loses grasp of its heart. Jackie drifts to the periphery; her husband is merely a plot device. We never experience her inner journey from a spirited youth to a woman reckoning with the past and present. Melodrama then takes over completely, prioritizing action sequences and dramatic confrontations over authentic character interaction.

While passion surely fades with time, rich stories linger in how people evolve and relate on a human scale. Beating Hearts instead settles for pat resolutions and climaxes. But the sweeping grandeur that awoke our sympathies is now just a superficial flourish, papering over thin passions and muddled motives. When the drama of lived reality dissipates, all the operatic beats in the world cannot make a beating heart.

A Reunion Not Quite Earned

This film takes us on a rollercoaster ride, following the star-crossed lovers Jackie and Clotaire. After a decade apart, their reunion in the second half sees the pair trying to recapture what was, but something’s not quite right. Jackie has built a new life, while Clotaire emerged from jail even more lost and angry at the world.

The ending tries to rekindle that youthful magic, with Clotaire desperate to win Jackie back and protect her no matter the cost. But after so much time and hardship, their bond no longer pulses as it did before. Scenes of Clotaire’s criminal errands and Jackie’s strained home life pull you away from the romance rather than closer to it.

When resolutions are tied with a pretty bow, it feels unearned. The director grasps at recapturing the optimism of young love from the first act, yet neglects the messy realities that tore these characters apart.

While ambitious in scope, Beating Hearts struggles to reconcile its gritty criminal drama with a neatly tied conclusion. The film had all the pieces to reach majestic heights, but flaws in seeing its disparate parts through to the end hold it back from achieving greatness. A sentimental idea exceeds this story’s gritty execution.

Cinematography Captures the Spirit of Young Love

Beating Hearts truly immerses you in the highs of first love through its imagery. Laurent Tangy’s cinematography brings the passionate romance of Jackie and Clotaire to life. Golden fields and sweeping shorelines painted in dusk’s warm glow make their caress feel larger than life.

The film also stands out in its selection of 1980s tunes. During the youthful scenes, songs like The Cure empowered key moments with just the right emotional punch. One scene in particular, set to “A Forest,”  deserves praise. Silhouetted figures dancing in the moonlight conveyed the indescribable joy of a new connection perfectly.

Even the smaller technical details enhance the story. Sun-kissed filters lend a nostalgic haze to the past, while starker palettes signal the colder reality of the present. Production design transports you completely to the settings of Jackie and Clotaire’s drama.

Unfortunately, at 165 minutes, the runtime proves too lengthy. As the central relationship matures, excess fluff in later scenes drags down the pacing. A trimmer cut may have balanced rosy flashbacks with grittier present-day scenes more seamlessly. While flawed, Beating Hearts shines as a technical achievement in capturing young love’s magic through its imagery, score, and transportation of setting.

Faded Passion: Beating Hearts’ Uneven Journey

Beating Hearts began with such promise, immersing viewers in the exhilaration of first love. It seemed like a sweeping melodrama for the ages. However, it could not sustain that early magic.

In its first half, the film flourished. It transported us to Jackie and Clotaire’s world, and we felt every thrill and sting through their performances. Even minor characters sprang to life. The richness of the setting and choice of music sealed the deal.

Yet as the couple grew apart, so did they from the viewer. Subsequent scenes lacked that vital spark. No amount of flashing lights or grand gestures could rekindle lost passion. We watched from a distance as the story unraveled.

The logic of grown-up Clotaire’s actions escaped us. Jackie faded into a mystery. Trying to shock, the film lost its understanding of these characters. What began down-to-earth drifted into abstraction.

To its credit, Beating Hearts aimed high. It swung for the fences, pursuing epic romance. In moments, it recaptured youthful spirit. Yet retreading past plots drained the remaining goodwill. The ending twist arrived too late to repair the damage.

Beating Hearts was an imperfect vessel. But its unvarnished desire to dramatize all-consuming love remains admirable. Perhaps no single work can maintain such heights indefinitely. But we’ll not soon forget its luminous opening notes, reminding us forever of love’s dizzying power. For glimpses of its brilliance, Beating Hearts is worth appreciating.