Watching a bunch of squabbling seniors in a retirement home should be a lot of fun, right? If you agree, rent Quartet, directed by Dustin Hoffman. Starring Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly, Gwyneth Jones, and Pauline Collins, it's a free-for-all when their egos clash. This isn't an ordinary "old folks flick"; every character is a former opera singer. When their retirement home, which caters specifically to musicians, might need to close due to lack of funds, they decide to all pull together, suck up their spats, and put on a concert to raise money.
They each have their own little personalities and quirks, and it's very easy to imagine them all forty years younger having exactly the same arguments. Billy is the flirtatious ladies' man, Michael is always in a bad mood, and Gwyneth and Maggie battle it out as primadonnas both believing they have a superior voice. Add into the mix that Maggie and Tom are ex-spouses with old wounds in their history, and the spats turn personal.
What was perhaps my favorite element of the movie was the deliberate choice to never let us hear the actors sing. This way, we can imagine how they sound; no one will get an unrealistic dubber, or sound "too old", or look ridiculous if we can't imagine them singing opera. The opera singing is not the point of the story: the characters are. If they were a group of former teachers or actors or students at a reunion, the story would still be the same. Jealousy, romance, and pride aren't limited to the opera house.
They each have their own little personalities and quirks, and it's very easy to imagine them all forty years younger having exactly the same arguments. Billy is the flirtatious ladies' man, Michael is always in a bad mood, and Gwyneth and Maggie battle it out as primadonnas both believing they have a superior voice. Add into the mix that Maggie and Tom are ex-spouses with old wounds in their history, and the spats turn personal.
What was perhaps my favorite element of the movie was the deliberate choice to never let us hear the actors sing. This way, we can imagine how they sound; no one will get an unrealistic dubber, or sound "too old", or look ridiculous if we can't imagine them singing opera. The opera singing is not the point of the story: the characters are. If they were a group of former teachers or actors or students at a reunion, the story would still be the same. Jealousy, romance, and pride aren't limited to the opera house.