| Romain Duris, Niels Arestrup , Linh-Dan
Pham , Aure Atika, Emmanuelle Devos, Jonathan Zaccaï , Gilles Cohen
A man finds his heart and soul torn between loyalty to his family
and a need to be redeemed from his violent lifestyle in this powerful
drama from France. Tom (Romain Duris) is a man in his early thirties
who finds himself caught between two very different worlds. Tom
loves music, and longs to have a career as a concert pianist; he
also has talent, and is taking advanced music lessons from Miao-Lin
(Linh Dan Pham). But Tom supports himself working as a collection
agent for his father, Robert (Niels Arestrup), a mid-level gangster
and loan shark, as well as helping Sami (Gilles Cohen) and Fabrice
(Jonathan Zaccai), two of Robert's cronies who put together crooked
real-estate deals. Tom's hair-trigger temper makes it easy for him
to adapt to the violent life of a gangster's muscle man, but he
wants to give his creative side a chance to grow, and struggles
to get his skills in order for an audition with a concert promoter
interested in his music. Tom is also walking on a wire with his
employers by having an affair with Aline (Aure Atika), Fabrice's
wife, and is forced to mediate a bitter feud between his father
and a Russian gangster, Minskov (Anton Yakovlev). A remake of James
Toback's acclaimed directorial debut, Fingers, The Beat That My
Heart Skipped (aka De Battre Mon Coeur S'Est Arrêté) was nominated
for the Golden Bear award at the 2005 Berlin Film Festival. |