Music from Another Room (1998) Review

Posted on the 19 July 2020 by Caz @LetsGoToTheMov7

Danny is a young man who grew up believing that he would marry the girl he helped deliver as a 5 year old boy. Twenty five years later he returns to his hometown and finds Anna almost immediately, she isn't overly keen on him though!

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Music from Another Room is a bit of a strange film, which is something I will delve deeper into throughout the review but the reason I found it strange was because I wasn't overly bothered about the main plot and much more enjoyed one of the sub-plots.

The opening scene is where we see five year old Danny with his father visiting a family friends house at Thanksgiving. Grace goes into labour and his father asks him to unwrap the umbilical cord from around the baby so it can be born. Its actually quite traumatic to watch and I mean can you imagine asking a 5 year old to do that? It isn't something I would want to be around now in my thirties. But obviously this was important to the plot of the film as when they leave he tells his father they are meant to be together forever and states he will marry her one day.

After his father dies twenty five years later he decides to move back to his hometown, without anywhere to live or a job he find an apartment owned by a bakery shop couple who also offer him a job delivering cakes. I mean doesn't this type of luck only ever happen in the movies? Of course it does, although his luck does not stop at that when he gets lost and ends up stopping at Grace's house to ask for directions. Nina who is Anna's blind sister opens the door and this is the first time he also sees Anna after all of those years.

The sub plot which I enjoyed more than the main plot was that of Nina, who was quite frankly sick of her family and mostly Anna always trying to do everything for her due to being blind. Danny is the one who manages to get her out of her comfort zone and in doing so she meets Jesus and they have a fantastic relationship. I seriously thought that was the most pure and lovely part of the whole film!

I guess I found the whole thing of Danny believing he loves Anna before even really knowing her as rather pathetic. Everything about the relationship is forced from him and quite frankly very creepy. You might have an idea that a person is the one for you but what if you don't actually get along? Especially considering Anna was actually engaged to be married to Eric. Although that didn't seem to be what she wanted either, overall Anna was not really a very nice character and Danny seems to fall for her for no real reason.

The sub plot being easily the best part of the film and certainly made it a lot better. That included a very good performance from Jennifer Tilly who was certainly the biggest scene stealer throughout the film. From having a little look through Jude Law's filmography this was one of his first leading roles. I did enjoy his performance as thought he was pretty good. I'm also a fan of Brenda Blethyn so nice to watch her in another role, albeit a supporting one.