A Late Quartet, 2012.
Directed by Yaron Zilberman.
Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken, Catherine Keener, Imogen Poots, and Mark Ivanir.
SYNOPSIS:
The cellist in a string quartet is diagnosed with Parkinson’s as they prepare for their final tour.
The film’s title, A Late Quartet, relates to the string compositions Beethoven produced near the end of his life, during his flurry of output once his hearing began to deteriorate (cheers Wikipedia). It’s a name with double meaning.
Peter Mitchell (Christopher Walken), the cellist in a classical string quartet (there’s the first meaning), starts to add a bit too much vibrato to rehearsals. His fingers are a little slower and shakier than last year. The upcoming season is the quartet’s 25th together. It’s a big deal. They’re tremendously successful. They had a documentary special made about them (which is wonderfully diegetic) and appear on a number of classical music magazine front covers. But Peter’s shaky, slowing fingers are the early stages of Parkinson’s disease. He won’t be able to play for much longer (there’s your second).
During these early scenes, Walken is quite something. After years of embracing his inherently ridiculous side (his hair will always be straight from the Bride of Frankenstein), Walken has been gifted with a role suited to understatement and old age. His voice, usually a source of imitation, becomes poignant in this setting. Words fall out of his mouth rather than be spoken. His stresses are strange and sonorous. He pauses in all the wrong moments. It’s captivating. Just like Yoda.
It’s strange, then, that the film only begins to gather pace once he disappears from the screen. The opening half hour is rather dull and, for lack of a better word, stuffy. The pretensions of classical music and high society can sometimes be frustrating to the uncultured (like myself), and Yaron Zilberman’s slow direction only exasperates this. But Peter is this cashmere cardigan’s unraveling thread.
He’s the father of the quartet, much older than its other members, and his condition affects them all in different ways. Juliette (Catherine Keener) and Robert’s (Philip Seymour Hoffman) marriage begins to fall apart. Their daughter, Alexandra (Imogen Poots), becomes romantically involved with the quartet’s other member, Daniel (Mark Ivanir). Robert and Daniel fight over who should play first and second violin. Everyone starts to hate everyone.
Hoffman is, of course, outstanding. As his life crumbles, he’s allowed to become a man in freefall. His beard grows long, his hair more shabby. And his eyes! His eyes seem to remain puffed up and reddened throughout the film, commanding every scene in which he appears with a hurting, vicious glare. Ivanir is also tremendous, arguably with a tougher task, of staying stone-faced and resolute despite his insecurities.
Keener is a little weak until her scene with Poots – Mother vs Daughter, surprisingly the film’s match of the night given its relatively small build. A Late Quartet has teeth throughout, and nibbles rather nicely at the heart, but never bites until their bout.
If the above sounds like a description of performances, it’s because that’s really what A Late Quartet is. The alternating conflicts and tight backstories feel like a piece of theatre, like Polanski’s recent Carnage without the confines of one room. That this isn’t an adaptation of one is surprising.
Originally published April 5, 2013. Updated November 28, 2022.
