A Late Quartet
Grace notes abound in A Late Quartet, a
small, shining gem of a movie that works its way into your heart with
insinuating potency of music.
The Fugue, a New York-based chamber quartet, is
facing a crisis. At the start of their 26th season together, cellist Peter
Mitchell (Christopher Walken) breaks the news that he has been diagnosed with
Parkinson's disease. Proper sympathy is offered by his colleagues: First
violinist Daniel Lerner (Mark Ivanir) thinks Peter should continue to play as
long as he can. But second violinist Robert Gelbart (Philip Seymour Hoffman)
lets slip his desire to play first chair, an ambition that appalls his violinist
wife, Juliette Gelbart (Catherine Keener), who sees Peter as her mentor. When
Juliette learns that Robert has cheated on her and that Daniel is screwing her
and Robert's student daughter, Alexandra (Imogen Poots), tensions within the
group begin to pound.
OK, it sounds like the plot of a daytime soap, and sometimes it is. But
director Yaron Zilberman and co-writer Seth Grossman have tuned their film with
the skill of the quartet at the heart of their story. Chamber music, which
features few if any solos, requires a close partnership among its players. As
the Fugue rehearses Beethoven's String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp Minor – the
Opus 131, which the composer insisted must be played without a pause – we watch
a dysfunctional family of artists begin to implode. We also hear music, mostly
performed by the Brentano String Quartet, that seems to be heaven sent.
It's paradise to watch this quartet of actors, who
learned to play short phrases on their instruments, make their own kind of
music. Hoffman and Keener, who costarred in Capote, play off each other
with artful intensity and pure feeling. Ivanir is the spark that ignites their
conflict. And Walken shines in a subtle, nuanced display of banked fires.
Approaching the cello with hands trembling, he's like a lover who's lost his
assurance. The performance is heartbreaking, and a master class in the craft of
acting.
Insightful and incandescent, this is a film for both music lovers and movie lovers.
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