There's an interesting idea about the way people assume wildly disparate personalities to please different sexual partners, but the flaccid execution of this promiscuous?New Yorkers circle jerk is more worthy of the clap than a round of applause.
There's an argument to be made that sex scenes, done to death, are best left to the imagination - but only if they're replaced by something more interesting. In 30 Beats, the conversational foreplay is hopelessly flaccid.
Beyond its eye candy, this wisp of a movie, inspired by Arthur Schnitzler's play "La Ronde," offers only hints of the complicated personalities behind the characters' sleek, well-toned surfaces.
The only payoff to Lloyd's structure is that the young actress Condola Rashad, a recent Tony nominee, is allowed to appear in both the film's first scene and its final segment to bring the story full-circle, though her enigmatic, beguiling presence underlines just the sort of energy missing from the rest of the film.
Clearly aiming for high artistic ground, the film doesn't even satisfy on an arousal level, with the discreet nudity and endless yakking not exactly proving a turn-on.
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