Movie: Grand Piano
Director: Eugenio Mira
Cast: Elijah Wood, John Cusack, Kerry Bishe
Rating: **1/2
A renowned concert pianist (Tom Selznick), who suffers from stage fright, realizes during his comeback performance that his wife’s life in jeopardy. An anonymous caller threatens to kill his wife (Emma, a successful actress) if he plays one wrong note while performing the ‘unplayable piece’ called La Cinquette.
In spite of some minor flaws, “Grand Piano” is a taut thriller that unfolds in a concern hall, taking stage-fright to literal extremes. The film has the tension of “Phone Booth” and the thrills of “Speed”. It conveniently falls in the race-against-time category of films that have so much in common and yet are unique in some way or the other. “Grand Piano” also has something unique but it misses the grand factor to make it one of the best films in this genre.
It succeeds somewhat in engaging the viewer with conversations between Tom and his caller but as soon as the motive is revealed and the perpetrator is brought to light, it only boils down to delivering a clichéd ending. This is exactly where all the good things you had saved up to say about the film turn bad.
The lack of a strong ending fails to do justice to the film’s interesting premise.
