Cannes 2024: Gilles Lellouche’s ‘Beating

This is what it would look like if Michael Bay directed a romantic musical. Though this doesn’t have nearly enough explosions or mind-boggling drone shots to really live up Bay’s movies. Beating Hearts is a big, epic, flashy, cheesy, nearly-three-hour long French love story thriller made by a French filmmaker named Gilles Lellouche. He last directed an absurd comedy called Sink or Swim that played at Cannes 2018, and somehow he was able to secure a Main Competition slot this year at Cannes with his latest titled L’amour ouf in French (or just Beating Hearts in English). For some reason, before its premiere the movie was being referred to as a musical – but it’s not really a musical. More of an epic, sweeping romance like Romeo + Juliet with two big dance sequences and tons of famous songs used in it. But there’s no singing and it’s not a classic musical, it’s a drama about two lovers in France. The story is lifted from the classic The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, following young lovers who get split apart for 12 years then attempt to reconnect later on in life. // Continue Reading ›