If you go to this film be prepared for it to be a bit melodramatic, a bit over the top, a bit showy, a bit purple in its prose, a bit like a Billy Idol song. Once I realised that and got into its over-self conscious groove I quite enjoyed it.

Even after more than 2½ hours, the story of this couple feels less than fully resolved - but where [Gilles Lellouche is] concerned, the prospect of following them further into adulthood may not hold much interest.

The result is much too long at nearly three hours, but I can’t say I didn’t warm to its rambunctious cornball charm.

The movie, taken from a novel by Neville Thompson, might have been trying for the kind of heightened realism and poetry in Jacques Audiard’s shaggy and highly cinematic sagas, but Beating Hearts has more of the blood sugar levels of TV drama.