jfkahan I've never seen a more pretentious piece of rubbish. All symbolism, no substance. It may be the most overrated movie in the history of film.

aquauver We have to watch this movie with a earphone.The music sounding through the movie,a great musician made,is amazing.How to play music,and how she move fingers is also good.It looks like a beautiful bird fly.I can see it forever,along with music.The concept of this music is maybe to release from a burden or freedom from the wall confronting us unconsciously.

pablofreaky I watched this movie 22 years after it's release in 1993, and can really see why so many people raved about this movie. Holly Hunter, who won a best actress Oscar for her performance in this film, shows her incredible acting skills with only her facial expressions and movement (except for the two voice overs at the beginning and end of the film, which were great too, of course). Her character has been mute since she was six years old, and this just gives the whole love story between the forcefully wedded woman and the poor Harvey Keitel character, a nice cherry on top. This film has so many powerful scenes and every scene adds to the story and gives us something new to learn about a certain character. Holly Hunter's Character, Ada McGrath has a daughter too, played by Anna Paquin, who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress as a 10 year old, which was probably the best child performance I've ever seen (with Jacob Tremblay for Room) and the scene *SPOILER ALERT* where Sam Nell's character cuts off Ada's Finger to stop her from playing the piano, after she finds out she's been sleeping with Harvey Keitel's character is truly one of my favorite scenes of all time. The pain Ada must be experiencing is extreme, but still no spoken reaction from her yet you can see how broken and physically/mentally hurt she is and the way Hunter portrayed that scene was when I realised that Holly Hunter is one of the best actresses of our time, truly magnificent. The ending is beautiful, yet disturbing, yet very powerful. I watched it over and over again!In the end, The Piano is a must-see movie for anyone who enjoys the art of motion pictures.

hall895 Holly Hunter, without saying a word, turns in a remarkable performance in The Piano. It's a shame that performance is stuck in such an unremarkable movie. This is a slow, plodding, grim and quite dull movie. Hunter creates a compelling character but the movie really has very little else going for it. The whole thing is rather pretentious. This is a tough movie to get through.The story unfolds in the mid-19th century. Hunter plays Ada McGrath, a mute Scotswoman who has been sold into an arranged marriage to a New Zealander, Alisdair Stewart. So after a long journey Ada comes ashore in New Zealand. She brings two very important things with her. Her young daughter, Flora. And her piano. Playing the piano is the way this woman who cannot speak expresses herself. She pours her heart into her piano playing. So suffice to say her relationship with Alisdair gets off to quite a rocky start when he decides he can't be bothered transporting the piano to his home and leaves it to rot on the beach. This is not going to be a happy marriage.Alisdair ends up selling the piano, which mind you isn't even his, to his neighbor George Baines. Ada is of course enraged. Further enraged when Alisdair orders her to give George piano lessons. George is a very simple man. He can't read. He has adopted many of the local Maori customs, including tattooing his face. Why does this crude man want to learn how to play the piano? Well he doesn't. He wants Ada. He just wants to watch her play. They come to an arrangement where she can earn her piano back by letting him do things while she plays. And the things George wants to do are not at all innocent. Maybe he'll start by just looking up her skirt. But before long they're naked and in bed. Well, what's a girl to do when she wants her piano back, right? Anyhow, this whole arrangement goes badly because George actually has affection for Ada but she's just using him to get her precious piano. And of course there is the small matter of Ada's marriage to Alisdair. That loveless marriage, with its complete lack of affection, greatly frustrates Alisdair. That frustration will manifest itself in rather terrible ways.This all seems like it could make for an interesting story but for whatever reason the movie just doesn't work. It is not entertaining at all. The whole thing is so bleak, perfectly matching its backwater setting. Hunter does so well to convey so much emotion without even speaking. You always know exactly what Ada is thinking, great credit to Hunter for being able to convey that. The role of Ada's young daughter turns out to be a critical one and Anna Paquin does well with it. Flora is an intelligent, mischievous little schemer and Paquin's performance is very good, very mature. An Academy Award was probably a bit much though. Whereas Hunter and Paquin shine the men in the picture don't come off nearly as well. Admittedly they're not helped by a script which gives them some rather clunky, awkward dialogue. Harvey Keitel plays George and never really seems comfortable in the role. Meanwhile Sam Neill's portrayal of Alisdair falls hopelessly flat. This is a movie largely about passion but it comes across as almost entirely passionless. It's a movie that is badly out of tune.