Un romance con Fígaro

Shining performances from the ever wonderful Joanna Lumely, Hugh Skinner and Danielle Macdonald. You can't help but get drawn in and ultimately lost in the story and music of this film set against the glorious Scottish countryside. Enjoy!

If you are a fan of opera, you are going to love this film.

Danielle MacDonald, who plays Millie gives a brilliant performance in this light comedy/romance who gives up a ludicrous career to go to a small, insignificant village in Scotland to pursue her dream of becoming an opera singer.

It left me feeling saturated up to my ears in opera and loved every minute of it.

As an opera buff, I was already halfway towards enjoying it anyway and it certainly is the ultimate "feelgood movie" and the ending was relatively predictable. However there is a delightful movie made more than 10 or 12 years ago called "the music teacher" it's French and the storyline is much the same! Indeed I began wondering to myself whether or not the writer and producers of this movie had in fact seen the music teacher which influence them to rewrite it and make a modern version . If you do a search on this database you will come up with a French version made in 1998 and it has the retired singer teaching 2 aspiring singers who are training for a singing competition. At the end there is a singing duel! I think overall the earlier French version is much more polished.

For opera buffs this is a pleasure to watch and listen to. If you don't like opera then you will be disappointed as there is a lot of singing (and, after the first few lessons, pretty good singing too). The storyline is solid if mostly predictable though there is a good twist at the end.

First off, Scotland is beautiful. The long shots of the crags and forests deserve a billing.

Second, if Scotland is part of the cast why only one costume? I understood the plot to suggest the preperation for the contest would take a year. Not sure if I saw early spring or late fall but don't feel I saw the whole year.

There were a number of humorous scenes in the movie but they lacked much connection and didn't do much to explain how the characters were growing through these situations.

Is it a spoiler to ask for more of Max's background? Or the nature of the relationship between Ramsey and Meghan? Or to see how Millie's growing talent and dedication transformed Meghan's cynicism into genuine belief in her students' potential?

I was happily entertained, and found I was even able to enjoy a few arias (spoiler alert - I generally tell people I appreciate all music except opera). Just disappointed that there were so many untended loose ends.