The Beat that My Heart Skipped

A young Frenchman (Romain Duris), who spends half his time as a would-be real-estate speculator and half as a knee-capper for his slumlord father, faces a personal and professional crisis when his talent for piano music starts asserting itself. Based on maverick American filmmaker James Toback’s 1978 Fingers, this French film from director Jacques Audiard (who co-wrote with Tonino Benacquista) doesn’t just skip one heartbeat; it has no pulse whatsoever. It’s a turgid, seemingly endless trudge through Gallic angst and ennui without one memorable performance, image, line of dialogue or note of music (the music—a mélange of classical excerpts, Eurotrash tech-rock and New Age noodling—is by Alexandre Desplat and won some sort of award at the Berlin Film Festival).