The Beat That My Heart Skipped
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Synopsis
A riveting character study in the guise of a gritty underworld thriller, Jacques Audiard’s international breakthrough features an explosive performance from Romain Duris as a real-estate broker torn between the dirty dealings of his slumlord father (Niels Arestrup) and his recently rekindled love for classical piano. Can music offer salvation from a life of sin? Winner of eight César Awards, including Best Film, this bold reimagining of the New Hollywood cult classic Fingers showcases Audiard’s gift for balancing breathtaking tension with galvanic human drama.
Picture 7/10
The Criterion Collection presents Jacques Audiard’s The Beat That My Heart Skipped on Blu-ray in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded at 1080p/24hz on a dual-layer disc.
Surprisingly—and somewhat disappointingly, given that Audiard’s earlier Read My Lips received a superb 4K restoration—this release appears to reuse an older high-definition master. It’s not the worst thing I've seen, but the age shows: the image carries a slightly noisy apperance as it struggles to resolve the film’s grain, and fine details rarely stand out. Still, even if it isn't exactly high-praise (nor even middle-tier), sharpness is adequate overall, if nothing else.
Colors look serviceable, if unspectacular, with a standard home video appearance of the time that occasionally pushes reds a little too far. Black levels are passable, though shadow delineation is weak, leaving darker scenes looking somewhat muddy much of the time. Smokier sequences also struggle with rendering details cleanly.
All told, it’s a perfectly watchable, certainly an improvement over DVD, but a dated one that lacks the clarity and polish a new restoration could have provided.
The Beat That My Heart Skipped - Screen Captures
Audio 8/10
The 5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD MA, sounds quite good overall. While the mix leans toward the front channels, it still offers a solid sense of range and decent fidelity. Music plays a crucial role in the film, and it’s well served here; Alexandre Desplat’s score, piano performances, and the occasional club or party scene all make effective use of the surrounds. Bass is also nicely weighted when needed. It’s not the flashiest track, but it’s clean, dynamic, and does exactly what it needs to.
Extras 5/10
Supplements are largely carried over from previous releases, with the main new addition being a 16-minute interview Criterion has recorded with Audiard. In it, he discusses what drew him to remake James Toback’s Fingers and how the adaptation took shape, amusingly noting that his co-writer, Tonino Benacquista, hated the original and couldn’t understand the impulse to redo it. Audiard also touches on the changes they made, how they reworked the protagonist for this version, and the ways language functions as a barrier within the story. He even talks about the film’s use of music and praises his longtime editor, Juliette Welfling. It’s a good, concise overview that effectively summarizes much of what comes up elsewhere on the disc.
Some of those same details resurface in a 40-minute excerpt from the 2005 Cannes press conference following the film’s premiere. Audiard fields repeated questions about why he remade Fingers (and looks a bit baffled by some of them) while also discussing American influences and his approach to music in the film. The piece isn’t terribly satisfying, partly because of the quality of the clip itself, which looks like a dated QuickTime stream with a long stretch featuring dropped audio.
Also included are archival interviews with Benacquista (8 minutes) and composer Alexandre Desplat (6 minutes), both recorded for an earlier DVD. Benacquista recalls working with Audiard despite disliking the source material, while Desplat discusses shaping the score and even serving as a translator between Audiard and Toback when they met.
From the same archive come about ten minutes of rehearsal footage featuring Romain Duris, Jonathan Zaccaï, Aure Atika, and Gilles Cohen acting out scenes, with Audiard occasionally stepping in to adjust performances. There’s also a 24-minute reel of deleted scenes, some with optional commentary by Audiard. Unlike Read My Lips' material (which featured whole excised subplots) the material here doesn't expand on much, mostly focusing on the protagonist’s relationship with music or his criminal life, though none of it feels essential. Audiard even admits that most of these scenes were repetitive, though he expresses regret about cutting a few moments.
The disc rounds out with the film’s original trailer, while the insert features an essay on the film and Audiard’s career at the time, written by Jonathan Romney.
Generally, the features are okay though not at all revelatory. Something examining Fingers and its transformation into The Beat That My Heart Skipped (even briefly comparing the two) feels like an obvious omission.
Closing
Given the film’s reputation (I’d always assumed it was widely admired) I was a little surprised by how slapped-together this release feels. While the lack of a new restoration is understandable, and the presentation is serviceable enough, the disc as a whole feels short on care or consideration. It’s a disappointingly underwhelming edition.
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