BEATING HEARTS

TWO AND A HALF STARS A petty criminal is unable to shake off the enduring pull of his first love.

DRAMA FRANCE French #BEATINGHEARTS Starring François Civil, Adele Exarchopoulos

Gilles Lellouche’s BEATING HEARTS (L’Amour Ouf) is an ambitious and often chaotic modern romantic epic, aiming for operatic grandeur but landing somewhere closer to melodramatic excess. With a sweeping narrative that spans decades, the film aims for passion and tragedy but its emotional reach far exceeds its grasp.

François Civil stars as Clotaire, a petty criminal whose life of impulsive crime and grand romantic gestures centres around his lifelong obsession with Jackie (Adèle Exarchopoulos), a similarly volatile figure navigating her own troubled path. They met at school (Malik Frikah and Mallory Wanecque are compelling as the troublemaking teens) and share a deep, destructive bond that the film positions as fated, even noble (Romeo+Juliet anyone?). But for all its stylistic flair - Lellouche’s direction is visually inventive and never not eye-catching - BEATING HEARTS struggles to ground its characters in credible moral complexity.

Clotaire is a rough-edged underdog whose sympathetic framing quickly wears thin. His seduction by a local gang is glossed over in favour of broad emotional beats, while Jackie’s own choices become harder to excuse as the film progresses. Their shared recklessness might have been compelling if treated with more nuance, but Lellouche leans into myth-making, not introspection.

What begins as a story of youthful infatuation morphs into a saga of obsession and co-dependency with flashes of poignancy, but it’s soon buried beneath a narrative that feels both overstuffed and emotionally naive. More troubling is the way Lellouche repeatedly asks the audience to root for its central couple despite their increasingly toxic and sometimes cruel behaviour. The romanticising of Clotaire and Jackie’s dysfunction leaves a sour aftertaste, particularly when their actions have real consequences that the film seems unwilling to fully confront.

The entire cast, notably Civil and Exarchopoulos, give it their all and that is quite a lot. However it’s not enough to get them over the hurdles that have been put in their way. In the end, it’s impossible to ask audiences to side with someone who beats their husband half to death (he may be a douche, but there are consequences…), or to cheer for a couple who warn an obnoxious boss that one of them is an ex-con who knows where his family lives.

BEATING HEARTS is not without ambition, and there’s something admirable in the director’s willingness to go big and bold. But the film strains terminally under the weight of its bloat, mistaking scale for substance and passion for depth.

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