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Average User Score: 8 (28 sources)

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supercin721

-1

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The shots and sounds are beautiful and raw. The color of the film relates to the physical place and emotional place of the characters. It connects with the music that follows the same course. The acting is heartfelt as well, really emotional,...
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The shots and sounds are beautiful and raw. The color of the film relates to the physical place and emotional place of the characters. It connects with the music that follows the same course. The acting is heartfelt as well, really emotional, though I felt that there was a lack of chemistry between Holly Hunter and her male counterparts. Nonetheless, the story is a beautiful one. Holly plays the part of Ada, an unmarried mother of a little girl, who lives and breathes by her piano. Her father marries her away, like a piece of luggage and consistent with the times, and she moves to live with her daughter on a New Zealand colony. She strikes the viewer as very serious, melancholy, and yet devoted to two things, playing the piano and ensuring her daughter's happiness/safety/life. Upon arriving in the new land, however, she loses her piano and it is George (Keital) who manipulates the situation in order to spend more time with her. It really is a rouse to sleep with her and, though he loves her, it's still a bit underhanded and despicable. What a selfish man! I'm not saying one must live one's life according to social customs. Quite the contrary, I'm merely saying you don't intentionally set out to mess up someone's situation. But then, the viewer will quickly change allegiances and root for the pair as Ada makes it clear she does love him and her cuckolded husband literally chops off her finger! I get he's frustrated. He's been married for quite some time and has yet to consummate the marriage but the sheer brutality of it was too much. Yet another selfish man. She doesn't love you. Move on! Anyway, when she leaves with George, daugther in tow, she has a moment where she must choose between life and death and her will, ever strong throughout the film, chooses to break away from the piano, and all its moorings, and choose life, a life with brightness, mimicked by the shots, and vitality and love. The end is the happy ending you yearn for but beautiful nonetheless. It's a great movie and, if nothing else, there many a gratuitious shot of Harvey Keitel looking fit and cellulite free!

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Posted feb 8, 2008 9:43 am pt

dickon01

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Holly Hunter is wonderful as the mute (but not deaf) girl, whose piano means everything to her (Hunter did all her own playing for the film!), as was Harvey Keitel her would-be and eventually lover who has her piano brought up from the beach,...
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Holly Hunter is wonderful as the mute (but not deaf) girl, whose piano means everything to her (Hunter did all her own playing for the film!), as was Harvey Keitel her would-be and eventually lover who has her piano brought up from the beach, where her husband left it--in spitre of, or perhaps ebause, it meant so much to her, to the near-jungole like mountainous terrain where both he and she and her husband (Sam neill, also excellent() live. It's a strange relationship keitel and Hunter have, but it is NOT the transporting of a piano for favors in bed. When the (justifiably--but what had he offered her? Nothing!) jealous husband fially does something horrible to her, she flees to Keitel, who takes her away,to a better (and flatter!) place.

It's funny, the little girl, Hunter's daughter, WAS the best actor (she won the Oscar, too)--but I cam never remember exactky what she did--except rat on her mother...

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Posted may 16, 2007 3:17 pm pt

amauriel

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I thought that the "Piano" was a decent movie, but I found the story to be a little bit sick--a man who will transport a piano for a mute woman in return for favors in bed? In any event, the settings were beautiful and the film was well...
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I thought that the "Piano" was a decent movie, but I found the story to be a little bit sick--a man who will transport a piano for a mute woman in return for favors in bed? In any event, the settings were beautiful and the film was well acted.

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Posted mar 5, 2007 6:23 am pt

NoOneIsAlone

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I think that this film was very well done, and though it is sort of like a drama and romance, it was nothing boring and nothing predictable, it had a lot of good moments around it. Some very good, some very bad, though I don't think that it was...
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I think that this film was very well done, and though it is sort of like a drama and romance, it was nothing boring and nothing predictable, it had a lot of good moments around it. Some very good, some very bad, though I don't think that it was the best. Still, it was a good movie, and very enjoyable. Good cast too.

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Posted mar 3, 2007 8:41 am pt

• [+] USA Today
  
  100
  Campion's script is very well received, but the film finally makes it on cinematics: bleakly beautiful photography, haunting score, and good acting. [12 Nov 1993]

  by Mike Clark | Read Full Review »
• [+] The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
  
  100
  Great art is both immediately accessible and eternally elusive, having at its centre a powerful simplicity that speaks to anyone who cares to listen, that rewards every interpretation while embracing none. The Piano is great art.

  by Rick Groen | Read Full Review »
• [+] Washington Post
  
  100
  The Piano plays itself with such contrapuntal richness, it resonates in you forever.

  by Desson Thomson | Read Full Review »
• [+] Chicago Sun-Times
  
  100
  It is one of those rare movies that is not just about a story, or some characters, but about a whole universe of feeling.

  by Roger Ebert | Read Full Review »
• [+] Chicago Tribune
  
  100
  In Jan Campion's The Piano, the emotions are deep, fierce, primordial. Sexuality overwhelms the film's characters like ocean waves blasting against a cliffside. [19 Nov 1993]

  by Michael Wilmington | Read Full Review »
• [+] The New York Times
  
  100
  Prepare yourself for something very special...Here's a severely beautiful, mysterious movie that, as if by magic, liberates the romantic imagination. [16 Oct 1993]

  by Vincent Canby | Read Full Review »
• [+] Entertainment Weekly
  
  100
  By the end, Campion views all her characters with a compassion bordering on grace, a humanity-like her heroine's-as dark, quiet, and enveloping as the ocean.

  by Owen Gleiberman | Read Full Review »
• [+] San Francisco Chronicle
  
  100
  Magical and haunting, The Piano has the power and delicate mystery of a gothic fairy tale. [19 Nov 1993]

  by Edward Guthmann | Read Full Review »
• [+] Washington Post
  
  100
  The Piano is dark, sublime music, and after it's over, you won't be able to get it out of your head.

  by Hal Hinson | Read Full Review »
• [+] The New Yorker
  
  100
  The story worms further into the guts of Victorian experience than most historical dramas, because it aims at the most neglected aspect of that age, and the most alarmingly modern: its surrealism. [29 Nov 1993, p.148]

  by Anthony Lane | Read Full Review »
• [+] Wall Street Journal
  
  100
  With its breathtaking visual style and careful attention to sound and movement, the movie provokes contemplation about the ways people communicate – through words, through music, through sex, and, most significantly, through touch. [14 Dec 1993, p.A14(E)]

  by Julie Salamon | Read Full Review »
• [+] Time
  
  90
  Campion has spun a fable as potently romantic as a Bronte tale. But The Piano is also deeply cinematic. [22 Nov 1993]

  by Richard Corliss | Read Full Review »
• [+] Los Angeles Times
  
  90
  It takes exceptional acting to enable a story like this to take hold, and Campion has gotten it here. [19 Nov 1993]

  by Kenneth Turan | Read Full Review »
• [+] Variety
  
  90
  The Piano confirms Campion as a major talent, an uncompromising filmmaker with a very personal and specific vision.

  by David Stratton | Read Full Review »
• [+] Austin Chronicle
  
  89
  The wonder of The Piano is that such an outwardly simple story could emerge into such a complex swirl of lingering memories.

  by Marjorie Baumgarten | Read Full Review »