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Jessica Isabelle Badua

Prof. Richard Karl Deang

EL 197

19 July 2013

In his film “Les Amours Imaginaires” (Heartbeats), Xavier Dolan, an award winning

Québecois filmmaker and actor (who is also gay) avidly portrays the theme of unrequited love.

The film revolves around the love triangle of Nicola, Marie and Francis. Marie and Francis are

the best of friends. And when Nicola comes into the picture, the two battle to win his heart. But

in the end, it only results to one-sided love.

Since Heartbeats is also considered a gay-themed movie, the presence of a gay character

is evident in the entire film – Francis. However, in this paper, we will perform a queer reading

on the character of Nicola in relation to Marie and to Francis – queering Nicola. Through queer

criticism, we will look for textual evidences that support the idea that Nicola is neither

heterosexual nor homosexual but may indeed be queer.

In the first part of the movie, Nicola sends Marie an invitation to a bar on Thursday

night. The letter looks special and one might assume that he only gave it to one person.

However, the invitation was not just for Marie since Francis received one as well.

Nicola is quite mysterious and free-spirited. When they are in the mountain playing hide

and seek, he suddenly goes on top of Francis the moment he finds the latter. And Nicola is not

letting go as he is grabbing or holding Francis’s hands tightly. What does getting on top of

Francis mean?

In the latter part of the movie, dates always involve three people – Nicola, Marie and

Francis. There’s only an exemption when Marie and Nicola watch a movie together because

Francis rejects Nicola’s offer. The three often sleep (not sex) together in one bed with Nicola
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almost hugging Marie. And there’s one scene in bed where Nicola tries to caress Francis as he

rubs Francis’s feet against his foot.

Another striking scene is when Nicola teaches Francis on how to eat the marshmallow

properly. He is the one placing the marshmallow stick in Francis’s mouth and giving him

sensual instructions in devouring it.

At Nicola’s birthday, he seems tempted in kissing Marie. If only his friend did not

distract him, he would have kissed Marie in the lips.

The element of touch and ‘baiser’ (kiss) is evident in the movie. Nicola loves to kiss them

not just in cheeks but down to their necks. We can come to a hypothesis that the two friends,

Marie and Francis assume that what Nicola shows to them is love. Nicola even state that he

loves both of them. But eventually, they’ll soon find out that everything is just their assumption

or delusion.

When Francis is trying to confess his feelings for Nicola, the latter was speechless and

only asks Francis, “How could you think I was gay?”. Marie also tries to confess her feelings, but

receives the same rejection.

Based from these textual evidences, we can stress that Nicola is comfortable with both

gender identities (gay and woman). In fact, he really enjoys the company of Francis and Marie

and one cannot deny that he shows acts or gestures of affections towards the both of them.

Another hypothesis is that Nicola might have a different desire compared to the other

characters. He is probably not into one-on-one relationship or maybe he prefers threesome. And

this might be the reason why in the movie he declares “Love me or leave me.” when the two is

almost having a catfight over him. In terms of ‘labelling’, he doesn’t label himself as gay but it

would be problematic to say that he is heterosexual based on his actions and how he feels. Thus,

we can state that Nicola is queer.