CS Weekly Archive > Weekend Read > 7/01/05

Music of the Heart

By danny munso

The Beat That My Heart Skipped
(De Battre Mon Coeur S'est Arrâté)
(In French, with English subtitles)

Jacques Audiard and Tonino Benacquista (former also directed)

Remakes are always risky business, especially when the remaker is an acclaimed French director looking to shake up an American film seen by, well, no one. It has to come as some surprise then that Jacques Audiard's The Beat That My Heart Skipped not only holds up to the film on which it is based (1978's Fingers, written and directed by James Toback), but that Beat surpasses it on almost every level. We meet 28-year-old Tom Seyr (Romain Duris) at a crossroads in his life: does he continue following in his father's footsteps as a real estate ruffian, or give it up to pursue his dreams as a concert pianist? It might be hard to imagine the same person having a vested interest in both of these options, but the film never has you questioning its reality. Tom is a classic character of the cinema: torn between two opposing worlds, and realizing that he may never be able to leave either one behind. The script itself is a mirror of Tom's inner struggle, weaving dark, gritty, sometimes violent material in between gentler, touching scenes of love and triumph: just when we're still reeling from the bloody aftermath of one of Tom's father's (Niels Arestrup) real-estate squabbles gone bad, we can't help but smile at the sight of Miao-Lin (Linh-Dan Pham) and Tom attempting to teach one another their respective languages. The Beat That My Heart Skipped is the rare character study that delves so deeply into its hero's mind the audience can feel the weight of his every decision.

The Beat That My Heart Skipped
Wellspring Media
Not rated; 107 min.

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Danny Munso graduated from film school in 2004 and can currently be found on his computer working on one of his many half-written screenplays. Or, more likely, he's on the Internet checking the scores of his beloved Bay Area sports teams.
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