Members of a world-renowned string quartet struggle to stay together in the face of death, competing egos and insuppressible lust.
In short, believing in and sticking with people you might leave a dinner party to avoid is arguably the biggest challenge of a film that elsewhere offers many pleasures, not least some ravishing music.
It’s easy to dismiss Zilberman’s film as a bit soapy and self-conscious, but I enjoyed the script’s bookish digressions into the importance of a second violinist in pulling together and showcasing the rest of a quartet, the craftsmanship behind horsehair bows, and biographical nuggets about TS Eliot and Schubert. Late Quartet has the feel of a good Sunday afternoon with Radio 3.
It takes itself very seriously and is completely shorn of humour but that doesn't stop A Late Quartet from being a very touching film.
Measured performances from the seasoned cast balance out a script that errs towards the melodramatic. Hours sweating over those instruments pay dividends too.
In the battle of the Quartets I’d say this picture, written and directed by Yaron Zilberman, edges Hoffman’s. Although it has its plot contrivances (to the point of being quite formulaic) the characters are better realized and the acting is superior.
On and on this goes, with only Catherine Keener – relegated to the frumpy wife/mother/colleague role – transcending the strictures of director Yaron Zilberman’s clunking script.
Wants to be Bergman, ends up more like a burgundy-hued Sunset Beach.
A musical delight.
Chamber music will never be "the new rock'n'roll", but I mean it as the highest praise to call this the best account of a group imploding since Anvil! The Story of Anvil.
A Late Quartet has numerous subplots fighting for attention, the unfortunate result being that many of them, and thus the film itself, feel under-realised.
Zilberman coaxes out something small but involving, perhaps even universal.
Like Op 131 itself, this film flits between adagio and allegro, sombre and playful, minor and major. It isn’t great art, but it is patterned after great art, and there are worse ways to make a film than that.
A movie with clarity and grownup complexity.
As welcome as all this classiness is, there's nothing in A Late Quartet that's going to make you spill your claret.
A Late Quartet is visually and musically rich. But above all there are the performances, individually and as an ensemble, and they're pitch perfect.
Sex, jealousy and strings
A violinist's view on A Late Quartet
Edinburgh Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Friday April 5, 2013, until Thursday April 25, 2013. More info: www.filmhousecinema.com
Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow from Friday April 5, 2013, until Thursday April 18, 2013. More info: http://www.glasgowfilm.org/theatre/
Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee from Friday April 19, 2013, until Thursday April 25, 2013. More info: www.dca.org.uk
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