Le 'cygne' du destin

Music From Another Room is the story of Danny (Jude Law), returning to his US hometown after spending over 20 years in England with his father, who has now passed away. By coincidence, he runs into the Swan family, who his father and himself used to be acquainted with, and especially one of the daughters, the beautiful Anna (Gretchen Mol), catches his attention. Before Danny moved to England, he helped setting Anna to this world by removing the chord that was twisted around her neck during her birth, and at that point, he exclaimed a wish to marry her someday...

This is first of all a romantic comedy, with Danny's chase for Anna as the main plot, and quite a lot of interesting sub-plots and characters. It is most enjoyable, and in the end a real feel-good movie. The script is intelligent, and at times, extremely funny. Especially Danny's landlord, Mr. Klammer, has got some killer lines early on.

The acting is also excellent. Jude Law is his usual self, well-acting and beautiful, Brenda Blethyn can do no wrong on the screen, it seems, and Gretchen Mol shows that she is more than just a pretty face. But the real stand-out performance is Jennifer Tilly as the blind sister Nina...I'm really wondering when she's going to go get the recognition she obviously deserves... A great cast all together.

The film has a few flaws, the most notable being a rather predictable story, but excellent acting and witty writing more than make up for that. Overall, Music From Another Room is a highly recommendable romantic comedy, far better than most straight-on-video stuff.

"Music From Another Room" is a romantic comedy with the sweetly sentimental flavor of a Hallmark or Disney production mixed with the occasional reality check to keep the goo from getting too thick. Sporting a fine cast, this dreamy film about a motley family and birth and death and love offers a fun scene to scene linear flow, keeps the sentimentality in check, builds its predictable love story, and manages several subplots all the while holding interest and easing a somewhat difficult buy-in resulting in a good all around romantic flick. Not for cynics, "Music From Another Room" will play best with sentimentalists. (B)

I found myself hating and loving this movie throughout the entire running time. Other than Gretchen Mol, there are some good performances, but the screenplay fails time and again to latch onto a real emotion or life-situation. I really like Jude Law but I think he was supposed to have turned this part down when it was offered.

However, the movie was made for me by Vincent Laresca, who played Jesus. He was so unbelievably nice and loving to Jennifer Tilly's character that I cried at his performance. Thank you, Vincent, and congratulations on your career.

Rail-thin, greasy-haired Jude Law falls for rail-thin, bizarrely-coiffed and made up Gretchen Mol in this uneven romantic comedy about a guy down on his luck who meets a gal from an eccentric family -- and decides he's going to marry her. He actually first meets her when she is born, but then doesn't meet her again until 25 years later. The only thing standing in his way is her highly successful, very handsome and unflappable fiancé, played by character actor Jon Tenney. Her mom is played by Brenda Blehtyn, but this is not a Bletheyn movie and she is relegated to intermittent appearances. She also has a younger sister (Jen Tilly) who has been blind most of her life and hasn't been out of the house in a good long while. There are several other quirky family members lurking about, including a married brother with an eye for the ladies (played by Jeremy Piven), although none of these folks get enough screen time to make much of an impression. The editing or perhaps the script itself leaves something to be desired. And unfortunately, there is absolutely no chemistry between Law and Mol. None. Zip. Zilch. This quasi-chick flick is recommended for undiscriminating female viewers only.

"Music From Another Room" is certainly recommended viewing, for what it is and despite what it fails to be. "Writer" Charlie Peters constructed as good a screenplay as you will ever find in the "straight" romantic genre. Unfortunately there is a failure in the execution as "director" Charlie Peters drops the ball in his casting decisions and in his efforts to extract the necessary performances from the two leads, Jude Law (Danny) and Gretchen Mol (Anna). And solid efforts from the supporting cast are not enough to make up for these key deficiencies.

Peters' story was inspired by Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina". It is Danny's fate, shortly after arriving in town, to stumble across Grace Swan (Brenda Blethyn) and her family who he has not seen since he was five. "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way". At age five he had assisted his physician father in delivering daughter Anna (like the book the family's three daughters are named Anna, Karen, and Nina). Seconds after Anna's birth, 5 year-old Danny had vowed that they would one day be married. But there is no indication in the screenplay that the grown-up Danny has come to town for this purpose, on the contrary he came to be with another woman who he has fallen in love with but who dumps him and moves away shortly after his arrival.

Peters should get credit for a great title, as "Music From Another Room" is a metaphor Danny uses to illustrate how he has felt in the past when he was in love. The idea being that love is like listening to a favorite song playing in the distance and coming back on the same beat of the song when it has been periodically drowned out by closer noises.

He should also get credit for the originality of the two-headed coin flip sequence; which sets up the film's resolution according to the flip of a regular coin. The irony being the characters' ability to flip this device of randomness/destiny into an exercise of their free will.

Although not a comedy, the film is has a lot of charm and some funny moments. Even with its flaws it is better than average but this does leave you regretting that Peters did not recognize his limitations as a director and bring in someone who could have better executed the ambitious vision of his screenplay.

The problem is that the quirky and original elements, which make the screenplay so good, require exceptional performances from the lead characters who must non-verbally convey a whole lot of character motivation as well as several moments of profound revelation. For "actors" up to this challenge (and for a skilled director), the roles offer a wonderful "acting for the camera" opportunity. For Law, Mol, and Peters it is way too much to ask and the result is strained and unconvincing. Which means that the mixes of sadness and joy, fate and free will, ignorance and revelation never achieve the dimensionality they should have. The failure to fill in the blanks with behavioral information combined with elements that were deleted in the editing process introduces an element of incoherence that ultimate undermines an excellent story.

Law (who has certainly demonstrated acting ability in most of his films)has stated that he regrets doing "Music From Another Room" and that he let himself be talked into the part. This may actually be true as he certainly gives very little of himself to the performance. The interesting thing is that the part actually has more potential than roles he has chosen and into which he has thrown a lot of energy.

Brenda Blethyn and Jane Adams turn in great performances and one can only wish that Adams and Mol had traded parts.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.