A Late Quartet (2012)

This is a movie about musicians--their lives, their motivations, their relationships.  The movie examines life on two levels--the first is that of a group of people working together professionally over many years. The second is the effect that being in an intimate work group, like a string quartet, has on the rest of your life.  And then that in fact the string quartet is a sort of family in and of itself, and that is at the heart of this movie.

The Fugue String Quartet has been together for 25 years and they are int he midst of preparing a challenging piece (Beethoven's Opus 131) to play to celebrate this momentous occasion.  As they are starting to practice, the eldest member of the quartet, chellist Peter (Christopher Walken) is really not able to keep up.  He at first thinks it is secondary to his advanced age (compared to the rest of the group--he was a teacher and father-figure to various members, the rest of whom went to Julliard together), but his doctor (Madhur Jaffrey, a rare combination of actress/chef) tells him no, that he has early Parkinson's Disease and while he might be able to continue to play the chello for a while, that he cannot expect that to last very long.  So he decides to end his time with the quartet, and goes about finding a replacement.  This sends the other three members into a tail spin. 

Change is difficult and the very existence of the Fugue Quartet is in danger.    The first violinist, Daniel (Mark Ivanir) is a technically gifted musician but somewhat constrained emotionally--he quickly accepts the change and wnat to move on.  The second violinist, Robert (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) wants to be considered for first violin, which is absolutely not an option as far as Daniel is concerned.  Robert's wife Juliette (Catherine Keener) and the violist, wants Peter to stay.  The tumult is both involved int heir personal lives (Robert and Juliette are married, they have a daughter who is a violinist who gets invovled with Daniel, Peter was a guardian of Julliette, and Daniel loved Juliette but suppressed those emotions for the good of the quartet)--so it is a very dignified on a professional level and very messy on a personal level, and I loved it.