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Film review: Quartet

Yvonne Teh

Reading Time:2 minutes
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Pauline Collins and Billy Connolly.
QUARTET
Starring: Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, 
Billy Connolly, Pauline Collins
Director: Dustin Hoffman
Category: IIA

 

Old age is not for sissies. That’s what a character in Quartet states more than once in this genteel comedy-drama, whose most remarkable attribute is that it’s the directorial debut of septuagenarian actor Dustin Hoffman.

The makers of Quartet recognise that growing old is not always easy.

But the elderly residents of Beecham House, the very comfortable home for retired musicians that is the main setting for this movie, do seem to deal with it better than many other geriatric characters, including those in Michael Haneke’s Amour and Ann Hui On-wah’s Summer Snow and A Simple Life.

Sure, Wilf Bond (Billy Connolly) has an incontinence problem and Cecily “Cissy” Robson’s (Pauline Collins) memory is fading. But their physical ailments are generally played for laughs and do not get in the way of their ability to enjoy life.

While retired opera diva Jean Horton (Maggie Smith) needs a hip replacement, she experiences far greater discomfort from learning that her ex-husband Reginald (Tom Courtenay) is not pleased about her turning up at Beecham House.

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