Checking Out QUARTET

Checking out QUARTET.  We recently watched the movie QUARTET.  As with all good British comedies I think you can describe it as "charming" and "delightful".  It seems in the few years the Brits have made their eccentric elderly (in a group) delightful to watch.  The movie was directed by actor, Little Big Man, and Rain Man himself,  Dusty Hoffman.  The Brit elderly made such movies as THE FULL MONTY,  CALENDAR GIRS, and WAKING NED DEVINE , about a dead man winning the lottery, and many more. 

This time they  are retired at the Beecham House, which is a home for retired  gifted musicians.  Just that much is enough to make a good movie, elderly, all performers , living under one roof, and all have a sparkle in their eyes and love life, and of course music, which there is constant performing of all sorts, chamber music, slap stick rehearsals.    And of course being entertainers  their vanity and egos and the number of curtain calls their public demanded of them played a big drive in the movie.

The retirement home is in the British Country side of rolling hills which is a peaceful pastoral setting.   I not sure if the retirement home owns all the surrounding  land or if they are just lucky.  By the way, a little mini-Google research tells that the Beecham House is patterned after a real house with the same purpose, Casa di Ripose Musicisti which are started by Giuseppa Verdin.

There are several themes or plots weaved in the story, all successful formula:  An ex-wife/true love shows up to live there which drives the ex-husband/true love bananas;  the rest home may have to close down if they don't earn enough money to pay for expenses - hey!  They are all talented people, they will put on a show!  The ex-wife/true love is an expert opera singer and is known worldwide for her song in the opera Rigoletto (played by Maggie Smith), vowed never to sing that song again.  By the way, that same plot played well with RAMBO .   She was tricked with her biggest weakness: vanity.

Charming  movie!