Four Last Songs (2007)

Director:

Francesca Joseph

Writer:

Francesca Joseph (writer)

Release Date:

11 January 2007 (New Zealand)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Music

Plot:

A comic drama set on a Mediterranean island, where a motley collection of characters is seeking musical redemption. |

Plot Keywords:

Nudity | Female Nudity | Sex

Cast

Stanley Tucci	...	Larry
Rhys Ifans	...	Dickie
Hugh Bonneville	...	Sebastian Burrows
Jena Malone	...	Frankie
Jessica Hynes	...	Miranda (as Jessica Stevenson)
Karl Johnson	...	Erico
Virgile Bramly	...	Narcisco Ortega
Marisa Paredes	...	Veronica
Emmanuelle Seigner	...	Helena
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Manuel Barceló
Ivan de Lucas	...	Mechanic
Drew Donovan	...	Entourage
María Esteve	...	Sweetie

Also Known As:

Mallorca's Song (Spain)

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

Spain | UK

Language:

Spanish | English | Catalan

Color:

Color

Certification:

Singapore:M18 | Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain

Company:

BBC Films

Why bother?

This film was a shot in the dark. I figured that with a cast like that (Tucci, Ifans, Malone et al.), how could it go wrong? Well, I'm not obsessive enough-or astute enough-to pick out where the problem lies, but after 45 minutes of the story, I bailed. I wasn't interested enough to care what happened to the characters, even to Rhys Ifans, who definitely had the best lines. The synopses you can read in other comments are accurate, but by the halfway point the story still hadn't picked up enough momentum to hint at an interesting outcome. There was one point that bothered me about the proceedings, too: early in the preparations for the concert the dead composer's grand piano is delivered by helicopter to the stage of a natural-i.e., uncovered- amphitheater halfway up a mountain. The story continues, then, a few days later, there is a horrendous thunderstorm that blows in, serves some plot points, then moves on. No mention is made of the priceless Steinway in the open amphitheater. Perhaps there is some use made of the ruined piano later, after the point at which I stopped watching, but nobody even thinks about it during the storm? That struck me as, at best unrealistic, at worst a lapse of the kind I could expect more of in the film. Why bother?