Beating Hearts

The first part, with the kids, is pretty good. The film should have ended there for the sake of audience. And Gilles Lellouche would have directed one of the best French teenage romances of the decade.

The rest of the movie, the second act, is horrible. The actors François Civil and Adèle Exarchopoulos lack chemistry together, their acting in this movie are bland and without compromise. I suspect both actors should start rethinking their own careers in French cinema once the two newcomers Mallory Wanecque and Malik Frikah outshine them and steal the show in this confusing mediocre movie.

At first it seems the movie strikes as a modern take of The Count of Monte Cristo .. I mean the old story of the wronged young rebel guy who returns for revenge and the search for his loved one. However it falls out with exaggerated and caricatured toxic masculinity. A stylized and tacky male gaze. And in the half and end of second act the plot ends up losing credibility.

The problem, beyond the burden of everything, is the strange determination that the film shows in claiming originality in each shot it offers without achieving it even once. Every time it comes to deciding,it always opt for the most formal, the most obvious. What we have already seen. And so, it repeats, for three hours of the closest thing to a French blockbuster, with a good marketing and PR behind it, it is that the French audiences are going to see this year.

Genuinely I expected a lot from this movie for 3 months and honestly I'm feel very disappointed from the script cause it's very bad and boring you don't expecting finally and type of story explain and happen like that cause there was a very good pitch and great potential in order to get one best story love of cinema industry, too bad !

First to all the pitch of the script it's great, you got all to making a such good story to tolling to an audience but unfortunately the way of manage the script played bad by screenwriters... cause the old period who explain the childhood it's nice but too long and you feel boring cause so many things happened and it' very useful to show and explain like 30 minutes to show the past will be great but 1 h and 15 minutes it's too long !!!

You expecting the movie will be relaunch when you see the old children's on adult people well.. note nothing move everything it's too slow, not so much action, then the main character could do a redemption about his old trouble, to do a revenge against all people who betrayed him but he didn't ... I mean that the story will be better with ideas and it's so disappointed that the dramatic scene was not enough present very bad cause it will be great story !!!

And about the script the two mains actors that we love, play only 20 minutes together, it's not enough for a movie very long of 2 h 40 minutes and too bad cause we expected anymore moments with these two actors, very bad point ...

The directing, soundtrack, playing lights and colors form the crew it's only the good points of the movie with also the nice acting from all the cast but for me the very bad points it's the script very slow and too long that it killed the movie... cause an alternative of some others ideas will be great but it didn't happened...

Thank you Gilles Lelouche for your great directing but your screenwriters and the different choices did by them killed the movie even if this story from a book and you can't to create the ideas that you want ...

Or something along those lines - so no pun intended. The bad boy syndrome ... you have it here too. And you have to suspend your disbelief for a few things so the movie can work in its entirety. The old he isn't that bad - I can save him route - is our character right this time? There are some indications early on where this might lead - question is if love can move anything and if so ... how much that would be.

This tells us the story in three different timelines and we are having a bit of a back and forth. That said, it not a frantic back and forth. Also get your mind out of the gutter - this is a love story ... with some violence in a different area ... if no one believes in an individual ... well he won't believe in himself either.

It is often on the verge of cliche, but never really falls off or flat. It works quite nicely - and the actors are the ones that make it work. You will always disappoint some people with the way your resolve or "end" things, but I think this chose the best way to go ... in all ways imaginable that is. A movie for almost everyone - drama baby, baby drama.

The film is very long and pretty uneven between its first part when the characters are teenagers and the second part, ten years later.

The acting is really good. The young actors are fresh and genuine. Adele and François are top. Alain Chabat is a big teddy bear and as usual, you want to punch Benoit Poolvoorde.

The musical background really sets the 80's tone in small industrial French town. Mostly British and American songs but so grounded in the era.

You end the film with a smile on your face.

It is not the best film of the year but a beautiful crazy passionate love story. Despite being uneven, you follow Clotaire and Jackie all the way.

Good girl, bad boy, hopelessly crazy about each other to the point of becoming toxic. Classic. She is bored and stuck and craves some joy and excitement. People have been tiptoeing around her. Her father is very sensitive to her needs and overprotective. He is neglected in a numerous family where he lashes out to get his dad's attention. It's not the response he needs, but it's all he knows and it's the only thing that works. Nothing special about this setup. But somehow you get drawn into their world. And it only escalates.

I was very mad at this movie for about two thirds of it cause I thought it gave me the ending at the very beginning. Surprisingly, and with a bit of movie magic, things turn out differently. So differently that it's a little far-fetched. A little too much artistic license. But maybe after all that heartache and bad luck... Loved the eighties and the nineties reflected here, I thought they did a damn good job conveying that. And I liked the child / teen versions of the characters. In fact the adults are present for only half the movie maybe. Probably why it turned out to be a two and a half hour movie, which is excessive in my opinion, and I paused it several times, but it did give me that epic feeling after all. The soundtrack helps too.

I had no idea there was an eclipse in the eighties as well, but I was too young anyway. The one in the nineties was not nearly as exciting for us as it seems here. Didn't seem that memorable to me. And I didn't have the special glasses and I looked at the sun directly (well, maybe a little fearfully) and I guess I was just fine.