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Created Jul 13, 2013 02:11PM PST • Edited Jul 13, 2013 06:19PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   This is a surprising effort reminding me why I go to the movies. To see so much woven into a simple story with the crafts of the trade is worth it all. The setting, the character development, the surprises, the efforts by the cast to draw something out of the story to carry you all the way to the very end, although only a 106 minute journey, is just marvelous.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   Five cast members turn in splendid performances, each finding identity in their roles and exploring the territory that defines them. And how can it be, that Christopher Walken seems to slip in the ether. For me, The Deer Hunter started it all. The living room scene with the explanation of the watch in Pulp Fiction and, of course, I will ask my friends to watch the SNL “cowbell” scene to understand what it means to really laugh, a request our generation begs other to do. But you can do a lot worse than marvel at this 70 year old actor in this role as Peter Mitchell.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

   We have our Jim Morrison in Philip Seymour Hoffman. He is simply on a professional trajectory placing him in the hallways with Streep and Nicholson. He finds new ground as 2nd chair, manisfesting all the emotions, thoughts, behaviors of a middle aged guy looking at his final stretch for glory in his role as Robert Gelbart. If God calls with short notice and you are a married man, you MUST see the scene with Robert and Juliette Gelbart (Keener) at the auction. It is why they make movies. Additionally, Walken as Peter sprinkles his talents with a handful of scenes culminating with his grand exit that took me back all the way to The Deer Hunter. Where do these guys find this magic?

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

   Catherine Keener performs a role as Juliette Gelbart that allows all of us who aren’t George Clooney or Brad Pitt to appreciate. Did she “settle” for Robert? Can a 25 year marriage be anything other than what love is supposed to be? Seriously, I have seen better people than these two emtional harpsichords throw in the towel long after they were doing it for the kids. Yet Juliette is puzzled to the point where she is comfortable with the business is business argument when her husband was obviously needing more. As a bonus, her efforts must have brought out some of the effort by Hoffman in the auction scene.

7. Female Costars Good 3.0

   Imogen Poots plays the nubile 25 year old violinist daughter of the Gelbart’s. Alexandra is perhaps the 100th chapter of the same old Hollywood story and Poots has filled a niche as the hybrid of Scarlett Johansson and Naomi Watts. But Hollywood simply has to find something to do with all these starlets until Jennifer Lawrence lets herself go to hell. Imogen turns in a proud effort, and the scence when Alexandra kicks Daniel to the curb is better than the others in that category, but mostly she should have been in the studio to watch and learn from Hoffman and Walken.
   The film also folds a little fantasy for us dirty old men when a bearded 2nd fiddle ends up as a love interest of the embodiment of passion in a role I think played by Liraz Charchi (Pilar). Just another example about how this movie reaches out to its audience in a very granular way.

8. Male Costars Good 3.0

   Mark Ivanir’s effort as Daniel Lerner was the least shining of the galaxy here but by no fault of his own. He played a stereotypical first generation eastern European whose eccentricities allowed him to surpass Robert. And of course, there was the potentially predictable moment early in the movie when he is asked to listen to the nubile 25 year old violinist that then allowed the audience to anticipate a now cliche story of indiscretion. There were two or three ways his character could have gone but none of them would have eclipsed Hoffman or Walken.

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    The script could not attracted top talent on paper. But the setting is in the winter in NYC, providing visual home to those with a remaining romance to the city, and an authenticity that the script certainly needed. Winter is found in the Gelbart marriage, Peter’s career, and the entity of the Quartet itself with spring glimpsed only in the final scene. The use of the season was certainly a key component of the movie serving as the backdrop of endurance that the characters required to overcome their various struggles.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

12. Play Very Good 3.5

13. Music Very Good 3.5

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.5

    Daniel’s character performed as a heavily medicated primate in the moment he landed Alexandra in the sack. Just one of a very short list of disconnects between the passion of his character and his performance.

17. Sex Titillating 2.0

18. Violence Gentle 1.4

    Gentle in the terms of modern society but the scene where we see a rare right hook by Hoffman was a moment that all men with no artistic skills could enjoy.

19. Rudeness Polite 1.0

    for crying out loud, they all played stringed instruments.

21. Reality

    Natural 1.0

    real on so many levels…as described above.

22. Circumstantial Natural 1.0

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0