Nearly every modern French film boasts a leading actor who has a magnificent obsession outside of their professional life,have you ever noticed that? Frequently it's music,sometimes a quest for a rare item, rock climbing or even acting (that last one's a favourite for all the rather pretentious play-within-a-play options it throws up). This film ploughs the same furrow but the obsession in this case - the piano - is more than just a showy tack-on,it's the very agent of the protagonist's eventual redemption. Everything good in his old life relates to his mother who fostered his interest in playing the piano; his present of moral turpitude and anger he owes to the influence of his deadbeat father. "My heart stopped beating" is the literal translation of the French title ("The Beat My Heart Skipped" sounds more like exhilaration than spiritual stasis to me!) and surely relates to this period,after Tom's mother's death,where Tom's heart is moribund. His is a world that whilst not outlandish (he goes to bars,works in an office,has mates) is subtly killing him. Comparisons have been made with Scorcese's Mean Streets and the squalid but recognisable world depicted there and truly Duris does have more than a hint of the early De Niro - that disarmingly sweet face allied to a troubled often explosively violent character. His is a superb,nuanced performance,leading us in time to an understanding and an empathy for what at first appears a "lost boy", just as he comes to find what had been lost within his spirit. Magnificent stuff and proof that European cinema is still light-years ahead of Hollywood in terms of films that actually mean anything.