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Beat That My Heart Skipped, The
Wellspring Media


8.0

based on 32 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 11 votes
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FILM:

Read My Lips

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Romain Duris, Aure Atika, Emmanuelle Devos, Niels Arestrup, Jonathan Zaccaï, Linh Dan Pham, Mélanie Laurent, and Anton Yakovlev

In this follow-up to his critical smash "Read My Lips," Jacques Audiard has adapted and updated James Toback’s cult 1978 noir "Fingers" to come up with this memorable character study about a young man torn between a life of crime and classical music. (Wellspring Media)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Foreign
WRITTEN BY:	Jacques Audiard Tonino Benacquista
DIRECTED BY:	Jacques Audiard
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: November 15, 2005 Theatrical: July 1, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	107 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	France
LANGUAGE(S):	French (with English subtitles)

Original title "De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté"; Best Film not in the English Language, 2006 BAFTA Awards; Nominated, Golden Berlin Bear, 2005 Berlin International Film Festival

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

As stylish as it is suspenseful.

100

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Audiard's superb remake improves on the original significantly, investing it with aesthetic grandeur and emotional depth.

100

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

What has resulted is a blistering film you feel in the pit of your stomach, a jumpy, edgy piece of work that thrusts us into a personal maelstrom so tortured and intense, the emotions could be spread with a knife.

100

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Brilliant, brutally poignant.

100

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

Unpretentiously fantastic.

Slate David Edelstein

Audiard's take is fevered, immediate, and hopeful--a story of a man recovering his soul. The most intense and compelling sections of The Beat are almost word for word from "Fingers" (albeit translated into French), but this beat changes everything.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

There are remakes and there are remakes. I don't want to belabor the flaws and sexual excesses of the original; its great strength was its explosive energy. Still, this one investigates the unfulfilled potential of the first one so thoroughly, and develops it so audaciously, that it qualifies as a brilliant reinvention.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

It's a thriller that comes at you with gut-clutching ferocity, spewing blood and sex, shaking you up and scrambling your responses.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Beautifully shot, in long, fluid takes, The Beat That My Heart Skipped is that rare thing: a remake that improves on its source.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The film confirms director Audiard as a master of visual mood, in this case one of barely expressed emotional panic.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Gianni Truzzi

It's a film that, by its complexity of character and mastery of tone, surpasses the original it was intended to honor.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The Beat That My Heart Skipped lacks the screw-loose existential vibrance of "Fingers," yet it teases out a romantic underside to the original I never quite knew was there.

The New Yorker David Denby

Audiard's work is tense, vivid, and alert, and he's got the right actor as Tom, an irresistibly attractive guy who's pushing thirty yet has no more control over his impulses than a chaotic boy.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

As tense and taut as any crime saga, but the stakes are more personal.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

It's more than a simple improvement, inverting some of the original's qualities so that the impersonal, well-crafted filmmaking remains lucid throughout.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Might not be as intriguingly odd as the picture that inspired it. But like that earlier picture, it bristles with life and energy. It's a movie made with equal measures of bravado and humility -- the same mix of qualities you need to play Beethoven, Mozart or Bach.

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

From the performances of its first rate cast to the infectious score and Audiard's deft direction, this is one of the most accomplished movies you'll see anytime soon-old, new or, as is the case here, combining the best of both.

Dallas Observer Jean Oppenheimer

A character study, the film succeeds in large measure due to the kinetically charged performance of Romain Duris.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

A nifty piece of work -- with, by the way, a fantastic musical score and soundtrack -- that, if there's any justice in the movie world, will eventually earn a mystique all its own.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Even when deadly silent, though, as he is through most of the film, Duris is brutally eloquent.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A good French film that was inspired by an American classic.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Doesn't replace "Fingers," but joins it as the portrait of a man reaching out desperately toward his dying ideals.

Time Richard Schickel

Out of a borrowed and preposterous premise, Audiard has fashioned a film that is more haunting--and more compellingly watchable--than it has any right to be.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Beat has a moody, furtive quality that jibes perfectly with the perplexed life of a pianist-gangster.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

It lacks "Fingers" searing, explosive vitality.

Variety Eddie Cockrell

Stands reasonably well on its own as an urgent, updated genre meditation on nurture vs. nature.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Plays like a piece of mediocre music, gorgeously rendered.

Empire David Parkinson

Simmering study of a petty hood-cum-wannabe pianist succumbing to his innate violent side - but there might be a touch too much ivory tinkling for some.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

The problem with The Beat That My Heart Skipped, as it was with "Fingers," is that the gravity of the character’s psychological divide is clear after the first half hour, and both films add little in the next hour to deepen our – or the characters’ – understanding or entanglement.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The Beat That My Heart Skipped has nonetheless brought attention to a nearly lost classic. For more than two decades, "Fingers" was not available on video or DVD and was rarely screened. But it's available now, and if you've never seen it, put it on your must-rent list immediately.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

As it is, Duris, capable and dull, is no Keitel, 2005 is no 1978, and The Beat That My Heart Skipped is no "Fingers."

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Contrivances accrue so thickly that the source seems to be not 1978 Toback, but 1930s Warner Brothers. The film sweats to be up-to-date with ultra-hectic editing, pace, elision, and sangfroid, but they can't verify the pasteboard base.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 11 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Timothy D. gave it a9:
Intense, compelling, emotionally complex, with great work by Duris, the male lead, who brings subtlety and urgency to what could have been a terminally unsympathetic character. I don't know that I could say I enjoyed much of it, but I couldn't stop watching -- in this case that is a high compliment.

T Ngo gave it a9:
Compelling and emotionally resonant. The intensity is there from the first frame on, and never lets go. Part thriller/part character study. Unlike the two previous posters, I did not think that the violence was gratuitous at all IMHO. It was apt to depict the lead character's heavy gangster life and therefore, later contrast it with his budding musical profession.

Francis T. gave it a9:
This remake is a vibrant, ugly, and still beautiful film that examines a conflict very close to my heart.

Merrill H. gave it a2:
Terrible film, unnecessary voilence and undeveloped characters.

Jay W. gave it a6:
Everything we really need to know is in the first thirty minutes. An interesting premise belabored by needless, repetitive violence to fill the obligatory 90-minute with popcorn theatrical format. Powerful performances nevertheless.

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Beat That My Heart Skipped, The Wellspring Media

Beat That My Heart Skipped, The
Wellspring Media