A LATE QUARTET
Cast: Christopher Walken, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Mark Ivanir, Imogen Potts, Madhur Jaffrey
Running Time: 105 min.
Yaron Zilberman’s directorial debut has a natural flair for capturing the authenticity of a moment yet it does struggle at times throughout the film to gel all the components into some form of cohesive whole.The elegance of the beautifully crafted scenes set amongst the homes and creative spaces of New York’s artistic community can’t really be faulted, yet there is still something slightly off-key in the story of four elite classical musicians and the personal interactions that damage their preparation for the first show of the season. Some quite superb acting adds considerable cinematic weight to scenes involving infidelity, illness and ego, but equally it’s hard not to see much of these same elements moving into standard soap-opera cliché territory, which is such a shame. Zilberman’s film stutters between profundity and cliché for most of its running time.
‘A Late Quartet’ has its emotional core in the form of Christopher Walken’s veteran cellist Peter. He is thirty years older than his fellow musicians and he is still grieving the loss of his wife and what appears to be a career-ending medical condition. The early scenes are all Walken’s, and at long last departing from his ironic psychopath roles, this gives him a delicious part and is without doubt his most pleasingly natural work. But soon the focus shifts between his less interesting colleagues. Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s second-violinist Robert seeks the fame usually reserved for Mark Ivanir’s first-violinist Daniel. Robert is married to the group’s violinist Juliette (Katherine Keener), an old flame of Daniel’s who finds herself caught up in the middle of their egotistical bickering.
Under pressure to decide how to proceed if Peter doesn’t respond to treatment in time for their opening night concert, their relationships collapse and tensions boil over. Robert goes in a huff and ends up engaging in an illicit all-nighter with fiery flamenco dancer Pilar (Lira Charhi) then shortly afterwards, Daniel ends up in bed with Robert and Juliette’s daughter Alex (Imogen Potts) which causes further friction and mayhem.
All this drama serial plotting is watchable however, due in the main to the ensemble’s collective and exemplary talent, yet it often feels like narrative padding between the scenes of the quartet’s rehearsals and performances. The piece of music most central to the drama is Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131. The lengthy, physically gruelling music takes on a particular relevance considering Robert’s illness and it plays a significant role in the emotionally-charged final moments.
