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In A Heartbeat Homosexuality

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Hope and Homosexuality in In a Heartbeat

In a Heartbeat is a charming rendering of a young boy struggling with his burgeoning homosexuality.

The film opens with a schoolboy rushing behind a bush as his fellow classmate walks by. He stares longingly, climbing a tree to get a better view. His heart begins beating more rapidly and audibly as he becomes smitten—a sweet version of "The Tell-Tale Heart"—until it literally pops out of his chest. The personified heart rushes after the boy's crush. The boy follows it, panicked, and in trying to retrieve it, he inadvertently becomes entangled with his crush. His heart leads him on a wild chase that ends in the boy and his crush in the school hallway. The boy attempts to tug his heart away from his crush as onlookers stare. Finally, the boy successfully extracts the heart but at great cost: it is torn in half. The boy retreats behind a tree, holding his literally broken heart. His crush approaches, holding the heart's other half to see if the damage can be repaired. …show more content…

The character design is artful and expressive—making it so the boy's love but also anxiety and sheepishness are well conveyed and felt deeply by the audience. A particularly comical and well-animated moment is when the boy's heart rushes towards his crush—despite the boy's best efforts to contain it—and in slow motion brushes his crush's quaffed hair. The music also paces beautifully with the animation design. It matches the delicacy of the animation and encapsulates the excitement of a first love; the soundtrack also subtly switches modes to embody the anxiety that accompanies the boy's excitement—there is an undercurrent of urgency in the boy's repression as he tries to navigate his blossoming

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