Heartbeats Review

• 25th May 2011

Xavier Dolan is probably going to direct one of the cinema greats one day. One day. Heartbeats isn’t that film. It is, however, beautifully shot, well-acted, rather funny and full of promise.

This film’s French title sums it up best: Les Amours Imaginaries – imaginary loves. Two friends, Francis (played by Dolan) and Marie (Monia Chokri), both fall for the same Adonis-like creature. Nothing is overtly said, but the competition for his attention begins… Unfortunately, he shows an annoyingly equal regard for them both. Who does he want?

Their attempts to seduce him rely almost entirely on style. These guys are just plain cool. Cool people wearing cool vintage clothes, smoking cool cigarettes and talking cool philosophy. In French. Strutting their stuff in slow mo to Dalida’s ‘Bang Bang’. Cool.

Thankfully Dolan allows his characters low-key flashes of painful self-awareness, giving us moments, when the facade crumbles, that are cringingly recognisable. And he intersperses the artful drama with mockumentary ‘monologues of the jilted’ – people talking about the woes of unrequited love with delightful self-deprecation. They set the tone well; it becomes impossible to watch the antics of Francis and Marie without a little wry smile.

The performances from Dolan and Chokri are great, and necessarily so, given that much is left unspoken. There are many blink-and-you’ll-miss-it bits – the twitch of someone’s eye, the hard set of a lip. They both manage to convey their obsession subtly, building up an exquisite amount of tension that can only end badly… and sweetly… and funnily.

Their obsession is mirrored in a fixation with detail in the camerawork too. Tellingly, sometimes we can’t step back to see the whole picture. Instead we see the texture of a straw hat, someone’s wrist, lace against skin. Our godlike lad isn’t the only one being seduced with style.

Which is where this film falls down – in the battle between style and substance, style emerges shamelessly and brazenly triumphant. The ‘Bang Bang’ sequences are repeated uncomfortably often and we definitely don’t need the abstract, colour-filtered sex scenes (especially when accompanied by an overly obvious cello). Some of it feels a bit Film School 101. And slightly superficial, which means the film fails to be entirely compelling.

But we can allow Dolan a little self-indulgence – the guy’s in his early 20s for heaven’s sake and he’s already got two nicely made films under his belt. With Heartbeats, one gets the impression there’s plenty more good stuff to come.

Kathy Alys