Dir: Eugenio Mira; Cast: Elijah Wood, John Cusack, Kerry Bishe
Spain/USA 2013, 90 min.
In perhaps the most absurd film in recent months a pianist, Tom Selznik, performs for the first time in five years; wife Emma, a singer, in attendance. Soon the already nervous Selznik (Elijah Wood) gets notes and calls from a stranger, threatening to kill him and his wife, if he does not play perfectly. Selznick leaves the podium three times during his performance (always arriving back just in time for his part in a piano concerto, having tried in vain to alert friends (who are both killed) to the danger. Style dominates substance throughout and a bizarre denouement leaves us bewildered but uncaring. The motive of the psychopath remains unclear, like most of the machinations of this charade masquerading as a film. John Cusack hardly gets a look-in. MT
REVIEWED AT THE LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2013 – NOW ON GENERAL RELEASE.