[rating:4/5]
“Opera is when you stab a man in the back – and he sings.” Funny how one line can usually sum up an experience. For Dustin Hoffman’s “Quartet,” this was that line.
A charming film humming around four elderly people in a home for retired opera singers, we’re quickly introduced to Wilf (Billy Connolly), Cissy (Pauline Collins), and Reginald (Tom Courtenay). Jean (Maggie Smith) comes later, right after we see how our protagonists usually trill before she moves in.
But once she’s stepped in the door and her bags are sent up to her room, we find that not everyone is happy with this new star in the house. You see, Reginald and Jean have a history, and he’s not exactly keen on her suddenly moving into his retirement home and thinking she can just live out the rest of her days there.
That was his plan, darn it.
But Jean isn’t leaving. She even tries to approach Regi, doing her best to start over with the man and just get along. “Be kind to me,” she begs. But Reginald won’t look at her, let alone listen. He’s been stabbed in the back, and instead of singing, he’s croaking.
Jean’s having similar problems, but it’s her pride that’s really cutting her open. Old age is scaring her, making her hide her voice for fear of what the public could make of it. “They always want it to be just as good … Or better.” She isn’t singing at all. Literally.
Wilf and Cissy have their fair share of cutlery too, though their knives are just rusting at this point. Wilf knows he’s in trouble from all of the dizzy spells that have been slowing him down, but Cissy can’t even see her own problem. Thank goodness she’s got Wilf and Regi to look out for her.
All of these flaws allow for the characters to not just be famous old people, but everyday retirees trying to get on with their life. The actors, particularly Tom Courtenay (Regi) and Maggie Smith (Jean), who so naturally exude heartbreak and loss, really bring about that vulnerability. Of course, Billy Connolly (Wilf) does steal the show quite often as the lecherous old man, igniting laughter in the audience every time he appears on screen.
And then there is that one moment when Wilf is real for a second, void of the smiles and the wiggling eyebrows, and gives some advice. “I’m going to say something a wee bit mean to ya – just f****** do it.” It’s something everyone needed to hear, and I don’t just mean the characters. But for Regi, Jean, Cissy, and Wilf, it did act as the extra push to move and give us that final performance in the film that we couldn’t help but expect from the brilliant beginning.
It made them stand up, and sing.
