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Created Jul 31, 2013 09:17AM PST • Edited Jul 31, 2013 04:20PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   A Late Quartet is a pleasant surprise, a little movie getting its main airplay nowadays at 30,000 feet. Tune in when it comes on if you appreciate intelligent interpersonal drama, with relatable adults working through the consequences of a lifetime of decisions, mistakes and challenges. Four lifetimes, actually.

   These are set amongst a celebrated string quartet looking to do one more triumphant tour. Interpersonal relationships that go beyond the music threaten to rip them apart however. Two are married, two are former lovers, two are like father and daughter, and one was the teacher of the others back at Juilliard. Complications? They’ve got a few.

   A quartet of great actors bring all this to life, including the estimable Christopher Walken and Philip Seymour Hoffman. But let’s also celebrate a newcomer behind the camera.

   Writer-director Yaron Zilberman deserves a curtain call for delivering A Late Quartet as his first dramatic feature. While deeply rooted in the minutiae of highbrow music, it’s easily accessible to we unwashed. More importantly, it gains power as it goes along, paying off its plot points in quite accomplished fashion.

   For instance, his central character delivers a Pablo Cassals speech about overlooking flaws and seizing on virtues, a metaphor for the plot as a whole. Moreover, the movie ends with a speech just this side of Lou Gehrig’s Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth address. That’s a subtle climax any filmic composition would be lucky to have.

   Finally, don’t confuse A Late Quartet with Quartet. Both came out in ’12, but this is the better movie.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Christopher Walken, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener & Mark Ivanir comprise a quartet of terrific actors.

   It’s always great to see Walken play a normal guy. Hoffman plays a man with doubts, regrets and foibles as well as any actor ever. Keener is more grounded here than usual, though that still leaves her character as maddeningly noncommittal. Ivanir is little known compared to the other three, but stands his ground as a brilliant and obsessed violinist.

   Supporters:

   • Imogen Poots impresses as a musicians’ daughter who’d rather be a groupie than a player.
   • Liraz Charhi also impresses as a passionate single woman drawn to an older married man.
   • Wallace Shawn lends his impeccable New Yorker persona as a highbrow musician.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    Yaron Zilberman deserves additional commissions after such a promising rookie composition.

11. Direction OK 2.5

12. Play Very Good 3.5

13. Music Very Good 3.5

14. Visuals Good 3.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.7

17. Sex Titillating 1.8

18. Violence Fierce 1.6

19. Rudeness Salty 1.7

21. Reality

    Glib 1.2

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.5

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0