Matthew D Booth
Christopher Walken gives an extraordinary performance as an aging cellist faced with a life changing illness. Very Dramatic film, with deep dialogue and thoughts. The cast works well together. How I can go from College Basketball to a Emotional Film like this shows I am very refined !! Ha Ha Go see if you like the actors. The music grows on ya Bravo............
Prismark10
A Late Quartet is charming little ensemble film, it almost feels like an adaptation of a stage play.The Fugue is a New York based string quartet that has been going for almost 25 years. It sets out to perform Beethoven's Opus 131, a long and tricky composition.Peter (Christopher Walken) the founder of the group notices tremors in his fingers which is diagnosed as early Parkinson's disease. His announcement to the rest of the group of his medical issues leads to a chain reaction where others assess their futures, professionally and personally.Juliette (Catherine Keener) and Robert (Philip Seymour Hoffman) are married whose daughter, Alexandra is also a violinist. Robert is tired of playing second fiddle to the group and after a one night stand, questions if Juliette ever truly loved him.Robert wants to share lead violin with Daniel (Mark Ivanir) and later Robert accuses Daniel of not playing with passion. Daniel who has in effect become the leader of the quartet, has been teaching Alexandra the violin, then has a passionate romance with her that she herself has initiated.Among these complications, of jealousies and betrayals, it seems the quartet are finished after spending so many years in harmony.This is a well acted little film. The heart of the film belongs to Walken who wants the quartet to have a future and carry on. It also has a strong performance from Seymour Hoffman, a man who feels vulnerable in middle age, who wants to grab a chance to get a share of the limelight.I feel the passionate romance elements of the story lets it down. It is difficult to imagine a young voluptuous woman would fall for porky, crumpled up middle aged Robert or Alexandra falling for the rather staid Daniel unable to play music he knows so well without his sheet music with added annotation.
writers_reign
Clearly at no stage of development did anyone involved in this movie see it as anything but art house fodder and that means that no one, especially no member of the cast, signed up for anything other than job satisfaction and if all movies were made like that we could get rid of the dreaded cgi and sequel syndrome but, inevitably, we would become bored with a surfeit of quality. So it's probably just as well that movies as sublime as this are thin on the ground. Because, make no mistake this IS a sublime movie suffering from perfect casting which equates to labour-of-love performances. O the whole I can take or leave Classical music, give me the Great American Songbook and I'm a happy bunny, Cole Porter rather than Purcell, Jerry Kern rather than Rimsky Korsakov, you get the picture. So the classical music that formed the warp and the woof of this entry was almost incidental except that it DID actually arouse my interest and enhanced what were already impeccable performances. In short I found this to be both absorbing and entertaining.
victordelavieter
It's not easy for Americans to produce credible emotions - as we see them in Europe on screen. This film goes as far in that direction as possible. It's easy to say that any flick with Philip Seymour Hoffman is a good one, and he dominates the screen indeed, but a lot of good acting happens when he isn't there too. Mark Ivanir of Saving Private Ryan fame plays a very intense Daniel and a young Imogen Poots presents a credible Alexandra.Indeed it isn't so much about music, it is about a small team of people working very intensely together, who face a major crisis and about suppressed emotions coming out because of that. The plot moves rather slowly for you to enjoy elaborate scenes some may find a bit tedious at times. Quite enjoyable for a late night viewing with a glass of wine on a quiet evening.
AD
