Movie Review - A Late Quartet

A Late Quartet (2012)

Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken, Catherine Keener, Mark Ivanir, and Imogen Poots

Directed by Yaron Zilberman

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

An adult melodrama, A Late Quartet is full of so many soap operatic clichés that it gets a bit tiresome at times, but despite my best efforts to roll my eyes at certain moments, something about director and co-screenwriter Yaron Zilberman's first feature film clicks.  The film focuses on a famous string quartet called The Fugue who have been together for over two decades.  When their cellist Peter (Christopher Walken) receives a diagnosis that he's entering the early stages of Parkinson's, the news affects each of his fellow quartet members in different ways sending them all on emotional journeys that they likely weren't expecting.

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener play husband and wife Robert and Juliette.  Together since the start of the trio, they have a college age daughter Alexandra (Imogen Poots) who is also striving to become an expert string musician.  The fourth member of the quartet is Daniel (Mark Ivanir), the founder of the group, first chair violinist (a position that sets up some tension as the film progresses), and über-serious Russian immigrant.  Peter was a mentor to Robert, Juliette, and Daniel and the news of his debilitating disease affects them not only professionally, but also personally, sending them all on an emotional roller coaster.

Despite the silliness of some of the plot points, A Late Quartet exudes a intelligence that one doesn't often find in films.  Maybe it's simply because of the focus on classical music, but something here felt refreshingly adult in the dialog, even if the actions of some of these characters bordered on teenage idiocy.  The intellectual aire is due in part to the screenwriter, but it helps that the actors like Philip Seymour Hoffman and Mark Ivanir were entirely believable in their roles as classical musicians.  I've known a few classically trained musicians and they composed themselves just like them.  Catherine Keener is also fine, but she's saddled with one of the worst scenes in the movie involving her character and her daughter that even she couldn't really act her way out of the absurdity.  Christopher Walken is...well, Christopher Walken.  While he's not quite playing a caricature of himself as I feel he's done in recent years, I never quite manage to see Walken as anyone other than himself.  That being said, when the film begins one assumes that the movie is going to be all about his character Peter, but after the opening act, the focus shifts greatly to the other members of the quartet probably to the film's benefit.

I realize I've done a little bit of trashing of A Late Quartet in the above review and I completely recognize that at times it plays like a really mature Lifetime movie.  Still, despite the lowbrow nature of certain aspects of the flick, the intelligence outshines the melodramatic theatrics and makes this definitely worth a stream on Netflix.

The RyMickey Rating:  B