Tom is a teenage boy who is not very popular at school. He dreams of being a rock star and playing the guitar on stage in front of millions of adoring fans. Living with his single mum in a flat in South London isn’t helping his chances. But when he discovers an ex-rock god, who faked his own death eight years ago, is living in the flat below he blackmails him into teaching the dark arts of rock guitar.
The main question people will ask when first watching this film is, where the heck has Luke Perry been? A man paraded in the 90’s as a sex symbol and the next big thing. Yet after Beverly Hills 90210 he seems to have slowly faded away. The ex-rock god role in The Beat Beneath My Feet suits him particularly well. Mixing it up between Russell Brand’s dress style and the moody musician enables his character to be the one you enjoy watching the most in this movie. He may not say too much at first but once his shell opens up we get to see him let go.
Perry also works well with Nicholas Galitzine, who plays Tom, as they have a nice vibe about them. One helping the other in subtle ways you don’t initially notice. There is something very similar here to what we saw in About A Boy between Hugh Grant and Nicholas Holt. A fun dynamic regardless of age and social standing.
The story is a positive one that reinforces the age old adjective of “you can be whatever you want to be if you just put your mind to it”. Whilst it may not say it too loudly, it does have that British sentimentality of holding off until the final moments before taking the leap. But that also hampers the film as well; it doesn’t grab it by the scruff and really drill it home. Instead it’s rather content to allow it to slowly form. This coming of age drama needs a bit more get-up-and-go to keep us more engaged than we actually were.
The Beat Beneath My Feet may just surprise you at how wonderfully British it is in its coming-of-age drama. A nice working relationship between Perry and Galitzine keeps it buzzing, but it needs more momentum to stop it being a little too downbeat at times.
