Life With Music review – sparks don’t fly between Patrick Stewart and Katie Holmes | The Guardian

The stars are sleepwalking and the audience is nodding off in this tedious tale about the chaste romance of an ageing pianistPatrick Stewart plays a renowned concert pianist named Henry Cole who has become wracked with anxiety about performing in this location-skimming yet curiously inert drama from first-time director Claude Lalonde. Luckily for Henry, an encounter with perfectly coiffed, perpetually soigné music journalist Helen Morrison (Katie Holmes, gamely trying to claw her career back from an early grave) revives his love of life and ability to give back to audiences and acolytes. While a May-December romance chastely blossoms between Henry and Helen, Henry’s flamboyantly fluttery agent-manager Paul (Giancarlo Esposito, playing very much against his Breaking Bad persona) lends further emotional support and mincing line readings from the sidelines.Despite the fact that the characters are perpetually jaunting off to the Swiss Alps and other romantic haut-bourgie locations, this is one of those films where nothing much seems to happen at all. Beethoven’s last piano sonatas play a key role in the story, so it’s fitting that the tempo throughout is a moderately slow adagio: stately but lulling. Continue reading…

The stars are sleepwalking and the audience is nodding off in this tedious tale about the chaste romance of an ageing pianist

Patrick Stewart plays a renowned concert pianist named Henry Cole who has become wracked with anxiety about performing in this location-skimming yet curiously inert drama from first-time director Claude Lalonde. Luckily for Henry, an encounter with perfectly coiffed, perpetually soigné music journalist Helen Morrison (Katie Holmes, gamely trying to claw her career back from an early grave) revives his love of life and ability to give back to audiences and acolytes. While a May-December romance chastely blossoms between Henry and Helen, Henry’s flamboyantly fluttery agent-manager Paul (Giancarlo Esposito, playing very much against his Breaking Bad persona) lends further emotional support and mincing line readings from the sidelines.

Despite the fact that the characters are perpetually jaunting off to the Swiss Alps and other romantic haut-bourgie locations, this is one of those films where nothing much seems to happen at all. Beethoven’s last piano sonatas play a key role in the story, so it’s fitting that the tempo throughout is a moderately slow adagio: stately but lulling.

Continue reading…