CINEMA: Heartbeat Detector

A word of warning if you go to see this film; this isn’t like watching paint dry, it is watching paint dry with numerous beautiful but extraneous shots that don’t push the narrative forward, and conversations of yawn-making banality.

That said, the basic premise of the movie is intriguing; are multinational corporations and the need to be the biggest, the richest and the best, turning us all into heartless insensitive brutes? Simon (Mathieu Amalric) is a psychiatrist working in the HR department of a German-Franco conglomerate. His usual tasks include psychometrically testing employees and having to tell people they are being ‘let go’.

One day, he’s brought in to ‘spy’ on his boss Mathias (Michel Lonsdale) as the powers that be think he may be going mad. But as Simon’s own life starts to unravel he’s forced to concede that maybe Mathias isn’t having a late-life crisis at all, it’s more that he’s having a change of heart and recognising the cut-throat world they exist in is actually damaging lives.

So far, so good, but as the characters embark on yet another metaphysical debate, the film becomes frustrating rather than intriguing and you just want it to get on and make its point and end. Which only goes to show (as any successful HR bod will tell you) if you’ve got something to say it’s better to say it once and get straight to the point, than go all round the houses and muddy the issue.      Dee Pilgrim