Director Gilles Lellouche aims at offering a grand love story, peppered with pop songs of the 1980s and 1990s as it examines the star-crossed romance between teenagers from different backgrounds.

One is a diligent student, the other a budding criminal, and they are separated for a decade before reuniting in adulthood.

The film’s first half is stronger, focusing on the women as adolescent counterparts experiencing the irrepressible excitement of first love.

Actor-filmmaker Lellouche’s first solo directorial feature, the 2018 Sink Or Swim, screened Out of Competition in Cannes, and now he was graduated into the Main Competition.

Starring Adele Exarchopoulos and Francois Civil, the tale is based on Neville Thompson’s 1997 novel.

Opening in northern France in the mid-1980s, the film introduces the self-possessed teenager Jackie (Wanecque) and bad-boy petty crook Clotaire (Malik Frikah), who enjoys bullying his classmates.

They fall in love, Jackie drawing out Clotaire’s softer side, but their blossoming relationship runs into problems once he is recruted by crime boss La Brosse (Benoit Poelvoorde) into joining his gang.

When an armed robbery goes wrong and a security guard is accidentally killed by La Brosse’s son, Clotaire takes the rap and is sentenced to prison.

Beating Hearts taps into the dynamic hits from the story’s two time periods. In the 1980s, The Cure, Prince and The Alan Parsons Project emphatically underline the couple’s burgeoning passion, while the post-prison section uses hip-hop and Everything But The Girl.

There are some dance sequences, which strike a balance between Hollywood musicals and 1980s music videos.

Unfortunately, once the couple is reunited in their 20s, the film loses its energy.