Grand Piano

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.