Grand Piano

"I play piano, this is just another gig. Nothing else." Tom Selznick (Wood) is one of the most famous concert pianists in the world but 5 years ago he had a breakdown on stage and disappeared. Finally ready to come back to the art form he loves he stages a comeback appearance. He is as nervous as he as ever been when he starts to play, then he sees a note written on his music that makes him forget about his stage fright. The only problem is that his next note may be his last. As you know by now I watch as many movies as I can without watching the trailer first. Going in I was thinking...a movie about a piano concert with Frodo, sounds exciting (sarcasm). From the beginning I was intrigued and then it hit me. This movie is nothing like what I expected at all. A movie I expected to be about love of classical music ended up being more like Speed or Phonebooth. It was tense and exciting the entire time and I really liked it more then expected. Overall, keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire time. Very fast paced and exciting. I recommend this. I give this a high B+.

A film that has clearly started with a high concept - like Speed but playing a piano rather than driving a bus - and the plot has been fitted round that. Having started from that fairly ludicrous premise, you might hope that the film would either embrace it and not take itself seriously, or find clever twists to add. Unfortunately it does neither. It's short enough to avoid being boring, and competently shot and acted, but really has very little to offer.

It's hard to think of the target audience for this - a run of the mill thriller based around classical music? - and I am mystified by its inclusion at the London Film Festival.

Suspenseful? -- not so much. But you will want to watch to the end because there is just enough happening to keep your attention.

This is an odd little movie with Wood playing a rather nervous pianist about to perform one of the most complex and challenging music compositions ever written. Then he discovers his life is on the line.

My problem was the constant running off and on stage during the performance because he appears to suffer more from a bowel or bladder issue. He is constantly up and down and running around throughout the concert but always back --- just in time for his piano playing! It got funny after awhile.

The set is pleasing and there aren't many surprises in the plot ... but watch to the very end because something happens!

When pitched the idea might have seemed novel if hardly riveting, (a concert pianist about to perform finds a note on his sheet music telling him that if he plays a wrong note he and/or his wife will be killed), but this thriller, penned by current Hot Young Thing Damien Chazelle and directed by Eugenio Mira, is surprisingly suspenseful. Indeed this is the kind of conceit that Hitchcock might have toyed with, (something similar was seen some years back when Colin Farrell found himself trapped in a phone-box with a sniper's rifle trained on him). Of course, that movie, "Phone Booth" had the streets of the city to play with; the problem facing Mira is how to keep us glued to a limited set, (in this case a concert hall), and a fixed time span, not to mention 'inflicting', on perhaps a less than enthusiastic audience, a lot of semi-classical music. That he, and lead actor Elijah Woods, as well as the off-screen voice of potential killer John Cusack, pull it off is a credit to them all. Also, for something so seemingly insular, Mira makes excellent use of the widescreen. Perhaps more destined for cult status than mass consumption but certainly worth seeing.

Here's a director who knows how to shoot a film and he directed the hell out of this silly script, but you can throw the fanciest camera tricks at a dog of a script -- but good looking nonsense is still nonsense. This is one of those high concept screenplays that seems churned out by an automated software writing program, not a human who actually sat down to write this. Elijah Wood gives a one note (pun!) performance and he's either miscast or just downright boring as our lead - though his hands do a convincing job. An off screen for most of the film John Cusack is our villain who will shoot Mr. Wood and his pretty little wife if he plays a wrong note. Cusack's expository dialogue over the last act of the film, explaining his motives are eye rolling and the remaining 15 minutes seem like the automated writing software malfunctioned when character motivation and narrative collided. A dumb, harmless film.