De Battre Mon Coeur S’est Arrêté
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| Romain Duris plays bar piano in De Battre Mon Coeur S'est Arrêté. |
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March 30, 2005: The French critics love it and are even comparing Jacques Audiard, the director of De Battre Mon Coeur S'est Arrêté, to Martin Scorsese, but that seems like wishful thinking. Something’s missing in this remake of James Toback’s Fingers (1978), which starred Harvey Keitel. The story tries to link the incompatible worlds of petty crime and classical music through the main character, a young man played by Romain Duris in the French version. This product of an unlikely marriage has inherited his father’s thuggish ways and his late mother’s talent as a classical pianist. We follow him as he strives to move from the dark world of the former to the brighter one of the latter, but unfortunately Duris doesn’t have Keitel’s charisma, and Audiard is too busy being stylish with the camera to make us care about any of the characters, except the hero’s two female love interests (played by Aure Atika and Linh Dan Pham). The result is unconvincing, although there are occasional lovely moments, as when the hero, who is sitting up in bed, motions his lover to stop as she passes through a doorway with the light behind her so he can admire her silhouette.
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© 2005 Paris Update
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