Quartet (2012)

Our quintet of "young" (post-1950) boomers loved this story of a home for retired musicians that gets disrupted by the arrival of a diva who sang opera with three of the others and was married to one. Dame Maggie Smith (profiled in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), Golden Globe-nominated for her role, is wonderful as the brooding, vain Jean, resplendent in her makeup, ash blonde coiffure, and pumps. Jack and I are big fans of Billy Connolly (covered in Brave), whom we loved watching crack jokes as the lecherous Wilf, which earned him a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the British Independent Film Awards. Pauline Collins (last in these pages in Albert Nobbs) is adorable as the ditzy Cissy and Sir Tom Courtenay (Oscar-nominated for Doctor Zhivago (1965) and The Dresser (1983), and won The British Academy's Most Promising Newcomer for The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), among his dozens of accomplishments) is arguably the star (my rule, not hard and fast, is that the first person you see on screen is usually the protagonist) as Reg, Jean's ex-husband, who loves teaching his opera class to teen-agers. Yo La Tengo named a song after him but didn't put his name in the lyrics, only Julie Christie's (his co-star in Zhivago) and Eleanor Bron's (as far as I can tell Bron never worked with him, but, like Christie, was a sexy English actress in the 1960s and beyond). The reason young Dr. Cogan looked so familiar to us is that the actress, Sheridan Smith, was notable as the saucy maid in Hysteria. Michael Gambon (last in Fantastic Mr. Fox) also shines as a male diva (divus?) who is directing the home's annual Verdi birthday gala.

The rest of the cast is filled out with actual retired professional musicians, many of whom are named and pictured in their youth during the credits, so don't leave early! The grand mansion is divine and I'm glad there are a few aerial shots of it. Not as big as Downton Abbey, but quite lovely.

Much of the delightful music comes from the players (many of the pieces are on this site, albeit performed by others), all rehearsing for the gala, although Alexandre Desplat (most recently in Zero Dark Thirty) is credited as the movie's composer for the tunes he contributed. This page will play short clips from the soundtrack album, including the Desplat tracks. Film student note: when you see the source of the music onscreen, e.g. the players, the radio, the turntable, it's called source music. Speaking of which, you may recall my post on Les Misérables in which I said I don't like opera. I loved the singing in this one, so I guess I do like opera (just not the sung dialogue). For those keeping track, there's a lot of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Mikado, and the piece that the four are planning for the gala is Bella figlia dell'amore, from Act 3 of Rigoletto. You can listen on the continuation of the first link in this paragraph and watch for a potential Joan Sutherland wardrobe malfunction.

78 year old screenwriter Ronald Harwood (Oscar winner for The Pianist (2002), Oscar-nominated for The Dresser and the wonderful The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007); others I've enjoyed were the Julie Andrews vehicle A Fine Romance (1992), Annette Bening's triumph Being Julia (2004), Love in the Time of Cholera (2007), and Australia) (he also wrote Courtenay's screen debut Private Potter (1962), but I didn't see it) adapts his 1999 stage play. I don't think you'll mind this mild spoiler: after it was over Mike turned to me and said, "I'm so glad nobody died!"

At 75, Dustin Hoffman (in detail in Barney's Version) makes his directorial debut (he doesn't appear), and has won the Hollywood Film Festival Breakthrough and Chicago Film Fest Audience Choice Awards, as well as this movie having been chosen as one of last year's ten best from the National Board of Review. Rottentomatoes' critics average 80%. Which makes it all the more maddening that our local paper once again chose to print a negative review of this charming movie. Make a point of seeing it! Not to be confused with A Late Quartet, which is also outstanding. Catch this one on the big screen for the sets and locations and get a DVD of the other.