Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
A closeted boy runs the risk of being outed by his own heart after it pops out of his chest to chase down the boy of his dreams.
In a Heartbeat is a charming, wordless animated short with a genuinely inventive and memorable conceit — a heart literally escaping a closeted boy's chest to pursue his crush. Its visual storytelling is expressive and emotionally resonant for its runtime. Novelty is genuinely high: the execution is singular, the metaphor beautifully literalized, and its LGBT representation in mainstream animation was groundbreaking for the format. There is no spoken dialogue so Acting (voice performance) is essentially absent, earning a 1 by default. The plot is slight but effective for a short. Cinematography is solid with fluid, colorful animation. The ending lands with warmth but doesn't fully transcend the short-film format's inherent limitations.