Starring: Christopher Walken, Philip Seymour Hoffman,
Catherine Keener
The New York-based Fugue String Quartet, consisting of cellist
Peter Mitchell (Walken), first violin Daniel Lerner (Mark Ivanir), second
violin Robert Gelbart (Hoffman) and his wife, Juliette (Keener) on viola, are
preparing for an upcoming season of concerts when Peter discovers he’s having
difficulty playing; a difficulty which transpires to be caused by the early
stages of Parkinsons Disease. As a result, he decides to retire and makes the
first concert of the tour his last performance before being replaced. However,
before the performance can even take place, matters of dissatisfaction and infidelity
threaten the continuation of the quartet.
Released in the UK the same year as Dustin Hoffman’s
similarly-named, Quartet (2012) but released earlier in the US, A Late Quartet
does bare some comparisons; both films are about musicians (more specifically
classical musicians), marriage and aging, although whilst Quartet dealt with
late life, three of the four characters in this film’s group are middle-aged. A
Late Quartet is also less comedic in its approach, appealing more to a dramatic
sensibility and, like Quartet, boasts a fine cast. As expected, the music is a
thing of exquisite beauty but the film is also tasteful on a visual level. The
over-riding problem to this, is the story. Whilst it gives decent concession to
characters and allows the actors great opportunity to rise to the occasion,
virtually all of the central plot points are dealt too soon and too quickly in
the film, without allowing the chemistry or character development to come
through much beforehand. Still, that aside, A Late Quartet is still a strong
film that just manages to edge out its more comic, British counterpart.
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