quartet

In another bid to increase my cinema-going in 2013, I went along to the Watershed this afternoon to see Dustin Hoffman’s “Quartet” (his first film as director and my third film of the year!). It’s based on 78 year-old Ronald Harwood’s play of the same name and set in a retirement home for (mainly?) classical musicians.

It really is an all-star cast and includes Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins, Billy Connolly, Michael Gambon, Sheridan Smith and a whole host of other well-known personalities (plus some REAL retired musicians!).
It was gentle, funny at times (some good lines – none of which I can recall!), somewhat predictable and, actually, an ideal film to watch on a bitterly-cold Wednesday afternoon. I got the feeling that the actors (and the director) enjoyed themselves during its filming.
I enjoyed it.
PS: I’ve just checked some film reviews and note that Peter Bradshaw (Guardian) gave it two stars and Anthony Quinn (Independent) gave it just one!! I think it deserves at least three…
PPS: Obviously, if you choose to see a film like this (especially on a Wednesday afternoon), you’re virtually certain the audience will be retirees like me. I think there were about 20 of us in total – all grey+aged, except for a man in his 20s who seemed to be escorting his father(?). I turned up about 10 minutes before the film began and queued outside Cinema 1. I was first in the queue and then two elderly women joined me, followed by a retired couple… then three couples (all in their 60s) walked past all of us and lined up at the front of the “queue”. Clearly, this really didn’t matter at all because it was a fair-sized cinema and, at that stage, there were going to be more rows in the auditorium than actual members of the audience… BUT you should have seen the disgusted faces of the two women behind me!!