Pauline Collins

DVD of the Week: Quartet

by

Quartet, an ensemble geezer comedy, is really an excuse for four brilliant actors (Maggie Smith, Billy Connolly, Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins) to show their chops.  It’s set in a retirement home for retired musicians.  The residents are preparing for an annual benefit performance, and the long-estranged ex-wife of a resident is moving in.

The most interesting character is the one played by Pauline Collins – a vivacious woman who may have always been ditzy and now has very little short-term memory. In 1996, Collins won a Tony and was nominated for an Oscar for the title role in Shirley Valentine.

Tom Courtenay plays a man still devastated by a bad breakup decades before.  There’s a wonderful scene in which he explains opera to a class of working class teens by comparing it to rap.  Courtenay is best known for The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), Dr. Zhivago (1965), The Dresser (1983), but was excellent more recently in the overlooked Last Orders (2001).

Maggie Smith and Billy Connolly are very good in familiar roles.  The irrepressible Connolly is very funny as a particularly randy old gentleman.  Smith’s character is in her sweet spot – not unlike the sharp-edged but increasingly vulnerable gals she played in Gosford Park, Downton Abbey and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  The actors playing the other residents are delightful, including a passel of opera stars from the 70s and 80s, Sinatra’s European trumpet player and more.

This is the first movie directed by Dustin Hoffman, and he did an able job.  He takes advantage of the beautiful pastoral location, paces the film well and, as one would expect, enables the actors to turn in very fine performances.  Quartet is just a lark, but not a bad way to spend an hour and a half.

Quartet is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Vudu, YouTube and other VOD outlets.

Quartet: geezers at the top of their game

by

Quartet, an ensemble geezer comedy, is really an excuse for four brilliant actors (Maggie Smith, Billy Connolly, Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins) to show their chops.  It’s set in a retirement home for retired musicians.  The residents are preparing for an annual benefit performance, and the long-estranged ex-wife of a resident is moving in.

The most interesting character is the one played by Pauline Collins – a vivacious woman who may have always been ditzy and now has very little short-term memory. In 1996, Collins won a Tony and was nominated for an Oscar for the title role in Shirley Valentine.

Tom Courtenay plays a man still devastated by a bad breakup decades before.  There’s a wonderful scene in which he explains opera to a class of working class teens by comparing it to rap.  Courtenay is best known for The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), Dr. Zhivago (1965), The Dresser (1983), but was excellent more recently in the overlooked Last Orders (2001).

Maggie Smith and Billy Connolly are very good in familiar roles.  The irrepressible Connolly is very funny as a particularly randy old gentleman.  Smith’s character is in her sweet spot – not unlike the sharp-edged but increasingly vulnerable gals she played in Gosford Park, Downton Abbey and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  The actors playing the other residents are delightful, including a passel of opera stars from the 70s and 80s, Sinatra’s European trumpet player and more.

This is the first movie directed by Dustin Hoffman, and he did an able job.  He takes advantage of the beautiful pastoral location, paces the film well and, as one would expect, enables the actors to turn in very fine performances.  Quartet is just a lark, but not a bad way to spend an hour and a half.

Albert Nobbs: the perfomances can’t overcome the story

by

Glenn Close plays the title character, a woman living as a man in early 20th century Dublin; the woman makes a convincing male waiter at a small hotel.  She is repressed, obsessed with stashing a trove of tips to finance opening a shop and terrified that anyone will discover her secret.

Although Close is very good, the actress Janet McTeer gives the movie’s best performance; I will avoid a spoiler by describing her character.  Pauline Collins is excellent as the hotel’s avaricious owner.  Brendan Gleeson pops in for one of his delightful turns as the hotel’s doctor.

The fine young actress Mia Wasilkowska (The Kids Are All Right, Alice in Wonderland), however, just doesn’t seem to fit the period.  She is stuck with playing the one dimensional role of an oversexed hotel maid who could be wearing a placard that says, “Knock me up”.

The problem with Albert Nobbs is that, to buy the story, you have to accept that a 50-year-old hotel worker has no idea whatsoever about certain aspects of sexuality.  Now Albert Nobbs is asexual and traumatized from an early incident of sexual abuse, but that really doesn’t explain how she could have observed behavior of hotel guests for thirty years without even learning about some basic proclivities.

Another problem is that the visiting English elite is SO cruel to the Irish staff (not just with historically accurate cruelty, but over-the-top  cruelty), that these story elements become broad and campy, which doesn’t mesh with the rest of the movie.  Despite the best efforts of Close, McTeer, Collins and Gleeson, Albert Nobbs just doesn’t work.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66N5hjkq740]