![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Also, what’s with the Bösendorfer being placed behind the orchestra?. I could go on. Say what? Okay, I’ve seen Barenboim play the Schoenberg piano concerto with music - complete with anxiety-inducing page flipping every thirty seconds - but are we to believe that a pianist in this state of terror would not have his own copy, or better yet, not have learned his part? Well, yes - when the movie hinges on the note written by a crazed sniper (John Cusack), which requires the pianist to leave the stage, return to his dressing room, pick up an ear piece planted in his backpack so he can communicate with said sniper, come back to the stage after an interminable orchestral tutti, and then indulge in a simultaneous chat-and-play to avoid being shot. For starters, arriving at the concert hall with minutes to spare, the pianist is given his music by the swaggering maestro. Still, there are some basic things one would hope the filmmakers would have researched. But let’s not split hairs - the film is so clearly preposterous that to demand realism in its depiction of the concert pianist’s experience would seem churlish. The script, which tries for sassy but is actually pretty tone-deaf, refers to him as a “piano player.” Now there’s a violation already. Moments before he is due to perform, he receives a nasty note scrawled in red Sharpie across his music: “Play one wrong note and you die.” Not a bad premise, and enough to set conservatory kids everywhere on edge - the trailer received a lot of OMG–type chatter from young pianists on Facebook - since perfectionism sadly seems to be the name of the game these days.Įlijah Wood, still shaking off the dust of Middle Earth, is suitably bug-eyed as the terrified pianist who arrives at the concert hall moments before the performance. Grand Piano is about a “disgraced” concert pianist who attempts to make a comeback after suffering from crippling stage fright. But I guess I have to make my own mistakes. Worse still, I failed to heed the letter from the editor in Listen’s spring issue, which warned us to steer clear. I don’t know what compelled me to watch the thriller Grand Piano, which was released last year to mixed reviews. ![]()
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