Tom Seyr (Romain Duris) is a nattily dressed 28-year old Parisian real estate debt enforcer who works for his father (Niels Arestrup), a sleazy housing profiteer. Seyr and his low-life buddies, Fabrice (Jonathan Zacca) and Sami (Gilles Cohen), acquire property for resale at a profit, making certain by any means necessary including violence that all squatters are removed. When a chance encounter opens the possibility for the opportunity for Tom to become a concert pianist like his mother, he finds that breaking away from his past is not so easy. Winner of eight César awards including best film and best director, Jacques Audiard's The Beat That My Heart Skipped is a loose remake of James Toback Fingers starring Harvey Keitel. In Fingers, Keitel plays the son of a gangster and a concert pianist who is torn between the efficiency of his father's profession and the passion of his deceased mother.
The Beat That My Heart Skipped is shot with dark colors to create a mood of foreboding. It is not all atmosphere, however. Audiard uses disorienting jump cuts, bizarre camera angles, and a hand-held camera close to the character's anatomy to create a frenetic pace and energy to spare. Romain Duris, a young French actor loaded with talent and charisma, plays the tightly wound Seyr with manic intensity. He is an operator on the lowest level, beating up restaurant proprietors that are delinquent in their bills and unleashing rats in a tenement to drive out the squatters. He seems to relish the jobs he is asked to do but still dreams of becoming a concert pianist. When he runs into his mother's former concert manager, (Sandy Whitelaw) he asks for the opportunity for an audition, then engages a petite Chinese piano teacher Miao Lin (Linh-Dan Pham) to assess his abilities. Since he does not speak Chinese and she does not speak French, the film could have been called Read My Lips II.
Miao is a civilizing influence and tries to stop Seyr from attacking the piano as if he was clubbing a tenant behind in his rent but cannot put a lid on his temperament. Their relationship develops slowly but erupts as both explode in frustration at his inability to follow instructions or master Bach's Toccata. To make life even more complicated, he is having an affair with his best friend's wife, and also brazenly seduces a mobster's girlfriend. While continuing to develop his artistic sensibility, Seyr carries out his father's suggestions to "take care" of recalcitrant payees, presumably out of love or guilt or both. He is very protective of his father and does not refuse his requests, though he has little respect for him, telling him that the woman he is thinking of marrying is a whore.
When Seyr agrees to take on Minskov (Anton Yakovlev), a Russian Mafia boss who does not keep his promises, it is clear that he is in over his head and he begins to rethink his relationship with his father. Audiard captures the character's nervous intensity and brings the macho sub-culture of Paris to life, yet the film lacks any semblance of warmth. The Beat That My Heart Skipped is about choices and the willingness to change our direction in life and we relate to Seyr's struggle with different sides of his personality. While Duris' performance rings with a fundamental honesty, I found it difficult to locate a common humanity with this dark, shady man. His cold, abrasive personality and the film's gratuitous violence make this portrait of the artist as a young hoodlum difficult to embrace. Somehow thuggery against poor people and the humanity of Beethoven or Mozart seem incompatible. While there is a lot to admire here, for me it is a film that my heart skipped.
The Beat That My Heart Skipped is shot with dark colors to create a mood of foreboding. It is not all atmosphere, however. Audiard uses disorienting jump cuts, bizarre camera angles, and a hand-held camera close to the character's anatomy to create a frenetic pace and energy to spare. Romain Duris, a young French actor loaded with talent and charisma, plays the tightly wound Seyr with manic intensity. He is an operator on the lowest level, beating up restaurant proprietors that are delinquent in their bills and unleashing rats in a tenement to drive out the squatters. He seems to relish the jobs he is asked to do but still dreams of becoming a concert pianist. When he runs into his mother's former concert manager, (Sandy Whitelaw) he asks for the opportunity for an audition, then engages a petite Chinese piano teacher Miao Lin (Linh-Dan Pham) to assess his abilities. Since he does not speak Chinese and she does not speak French, the film could have been called Read My Lips II.
Miao is a civilizing influence and tries to stop Seyr from attacking the piano as if he was clubbing a tenant behind in his rent but cannot put a lid on his temperament. Their relationship develops slowly but erupts as both explode in frustration at his inability to follow instructions or master Bach's Toccata. To make life even more complicated, he is having an affair with his best friend's wife, and also brazenly seduces a mobster's girlfriend. While continuing to develop his artistic sensibility, Seyr carries out his father's suggestions to "take care" of recalcitrant payees, presumably out of love or guilt or both. He is very protective of his father and does not refuse his requests, though he has little respect for him, telling him that the woman he is thinking of marrying is a whore.
When Seyr agrees to take on Minskov (Anton Yakovlev), a Russian Mafia boss who does not keep his promises, it is clear that he is in over his head and he begins to rethink his relationship with his father. Audiard captures the character's nervous intensity and brings the macho sub-culture of Paris to life, yet the film lacks any semblance of warmth. The Beat That My Heart Skipped is about choices and the willingness to change our direction in life and we relate to Seyr's struggle with different sides of his personality. While Duris' performance rings with a fundamental honesty, I found it difficult to locate a common humanity with this dark, shady man. His cold, abrasive personality and the film's gratuitous violence make this portrait of the artist as a young hoodlum difficult to embrace. Somehow thuggery against poor people and the humanity of Beethoven or Mozart seem incompatible. While there is a lot to admire here, for me it is a film that my heart skipped.