Heartbeats

In terms of the director’s ability to express emotional moments in relationships, this is an exceptional movie, especially given that its maker is just 21 years old and plays the main character. Heartbeats is a very pleasant festival affair. (01/06/2011)

He is 21 years old and has written and made and played in a film about love. The initial smirks about what such a young man might know about film and serious topics turn into a complete fascination. Heartbeats is a sparkling affair, whether with its pop art visuals or well-listened-to dialogues. The generational testimony of contemporary forms of love runs in a modern rhythm, makes irony out of itself and works with thoughtful and catchy language of colors and musical motifs. A challenging yet extremely open film that, unlike pseudo-shocking testimony about modern debauchery, goes all the way to the bone. Without any controversy and youthful efforts to stir things up. For a man who's from a different generation, the film affected me admirably. (07/12/2010)

Once again Dolan uses a huge range of audiovisual masks in order to simulate the depth that the characters lack. He takes refuge in spatial orientation, shoots three-quarters of the frame in handheld closeups, slips into a music video several times, and tries feverishly to sell the subjective perception of destructive lovemaking. Except that he has nothing but poorly written, affected, inanimate vessels for love with no integrity. For me to be able to understand loss of self due to painful infatuation, there first has to be a self to lose. But the characters here don't exist outside of their scenes. (09/02/2022)

It may be a bit sad, but I will remember this film not for how it deals with love and its various forms, but for the music that played during the film, which I very much enjoyed. I was enthralled by it and was carried away at times just by its tones and words. I was thrilled with the film in this respect. Not so much otherwise. (03/09/2018)