Mubi Monday: Beating Hearts (2024)

Based on a 1997 novel by Irish writer Neville Thompson, "Jackie Loves Johnser OK?", Beating Hearts is a very traditional tale of two potential lovers heading on two very different paths through life. It's so traditional that I was surprised to see so many names credited in the writing department, including director Gilles Lellouche, but maybe that was due to people helping refine the material and ensure it would all translate well enough to France, where it's set.

Things revolve around the pairing of Jackie (young version played by Mallory Wanecque, older version played by Adéle Exarchopoulos) and Clotaire (young version played by Malik Frikah, older version played by François Civil). Jackie is headstrong and smart, but generally also keeping out of trouble as she figures out what she wants to do with her life. Clotaire spends his time involved in petty crime with his friends, and things escalate to more serious robberies, resulting in a death that he is arrested and imprisoned for (despite not being the one responsible). The passing of time doesn't dull the strength of feeling that Jackie and Clotaire have for one another, but it seems that circumstances are conspiring to keep them apart. 

There are French crime thrillers that are better than this, and grittier. There are many love stories out there without the violence that this has. You have plenty to choose from. But Beating Hearts is highly watchable thanks to the style (it all looks great, and there's a vibrant soundtrack that even makes use of some John Carpenter tracks from the Escape From New York score), the structure, and the performances of the leads, both young and old. Lellouche does well with the material, but they give themselves a major boost by casting so well.

I've said recently that Exarchopoulos is one of those people I will watch in anything. That hasn't changed. She's as riveting here as she usually is, and there's a nice consistency as her performance follows on from the great turn from Wanecque. On the other hand, Civil, while he does well, has to be more sombre and worn down than the past version of himself, so charmingly portrayed by Frikah. Every one of the four leads manages to sketch an entire idea of their life lived up to that point, and the bond between Jackie and Clotaire becomes the one defining constant. Vincent Lacoste is fine as Jeffrey, a man who also ends up lovestruck by Jackie, and who benefits from being present when Clotaire cannot, and Alain Chabat is solid as Jackie's considerate and loving father.

Despite some predictability, Beating Hearts somehow manages to be both expected and unexpected. It has the occasional bursts of violence, it has the character who is only truly seen by a loved one, and there are certain debts to be paid. It also has a surprising sweetness through a number of scenes, and a genuine sense of how romance and love language can be very different for some, but no less genuine or serious. The hefty 166-minute runtime doesn't drag, and it actually feels right to give these characters the time and space to get to where we want them to go. I highly recommend this one, even if you think it's something we've already seen a hundred times over in the past few decades.

8/10

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Mubi Monday: Happening (2021)

Based on a 2000 novel by Annie Ernaux, and set in 1960s France, this is a film that takes viewers back to a time when women found themselves struggling to access the option of abortion after falling pregnant during the wrong time of their life. Good job that is an old-fashioned and harmful scenario that has been consigned to the dustbin of history, eh. 

I am, of course, being a bit facetious. I decided to watch this film now because of the recent events that have unfolded int he USA, but that country isn’t the only one that seems determined to stop women from having a choice in what happens to their own bodies. There are many other countries that make it difficult, including some that are hypocritically criticising the USA right now.

Anyway, let’s get to the film itself. Anamaria Vartolomei plays Anne, a young woman who finds out that she’s pregnant. That isn’t what she wants, because it could affect her studies, and subsequently affect the rest of her life. But finding anyone to help her proves to be very difficult, especially with the legal penalties that could punish any medical professional for even hinting at abortion as an option.

Directed by Audrey Diwan, who also helped adapt the source material with a few others (including Marcia Romano as her main co-writer), this is a drama with a strong point to make, and it features at least two scenes that will make many viewers wince, especially female viewers. While those scenes feel shocking, they also feel sad and disturbing because of the circumstances surrounding them. Nothing is here JUST for shock value. It’s all showing the desperation and difficulty of a pained young woman seeing people around her close off options that will allow her to reclaim her life as her own.

There are many other people involved in this cast, and all do a good job, but the focus remains firmly on Anne, which rests the entire movie on the young shoulders of Vartolomei. So it’s a good job that Vartolomei is so great as the lead character, being presented as an absolutely normal and “non-special” woman who tries to keep herself balanced while her world whirls and tilts around her. She is, deliberately or not (and I think it is deliberate), almost a blank page for others to project things on to, someone who is defined by one moment that creates a chain reaction that may be impossible to stop. She is one woman, she is all women, although I am very well aware that there are many others who would have an even tougher time if pregnant and aiming to regain bodily autonomy and control over their own destiny. But there are still enough moments of massively depressing familiarity here for anyone who has ever felt their world shrinking around them as they stretched out to find life-saving assistance from anyone nearby.

Maybe more of a lesson than a full movie experience, Happening is no less worthwhile because of how it is presented. In fact, it’s arguably more worthwhile, it’s a film that has standard moments of drama to simply string everything along in between the moments that it’s really designed to showcase.

I’m not sure if this will work for anyone who has a very strong “pro-life” stance, but you should try to get them to watch it anyway. Because we need to keep trying to convince people to care about human lives post-birth as much as they care about fetuses that they somehow imagine wearing little hats and booties.

8/10

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