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Nice effects though.

Absolutely the worst movie.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

While Quartet may be a lesser Merchant-Ivory film and is no Room with a View, Howard's End of Remains of the Day, it still has a lot to recommend it. It's not great and could have been better, but is decent.Quartet for starters is beautifully made, as always the costumes and sets are amazingly sumptuous, is lit with a luminous atmosphere and shot with the usual exquisite charm. It's hauntingly scored too, and there is some intelligent scripting too that does have some poignancy and explores the contrast between upper class lifestyles and moral corruption suitably subtly. James Ivory directs with an appropriate amount of restraint, and there is some good acting here. Maggie Smith relishes her juicy character and her performance along with the production values is the best thing about the film. Anthony Higgins is sympathetic enough too.Alan Bates' character could have been much better realised though, Bates succeeds in being charismatic but he is not intimidating or nuanced enough, Heidler is very one-dimensional and a character you feel nothing for from the get go. Isabelle Adjani is attractive but somewhat too cold and immature, which doesn't make the character's fear resonate. The dialogue is good here, but a better job could have been done with the characters, for they felt sketchily developed and their motivations rushed and unclear. Merchant and Ivory productions are always deliberately paced, but in their very best work the characters and their situations are really compelling and drive the story effectively, unfortunately because that was an aspect that Quartet was (for me) lacking in the pacing did feel a bit lagging and dull.Overall, lesser Merchant-Ivory but a decent watch. 6/10 Bethany Cox

I was looking forward to see this movie. Finally I did and I was really disappointed. I'm positive about one thing: the script was weak and superficial. Ruth Prawer did not a good job this time. In an interview Ivory said that she was not fond of the idea of making a movie from that novel. Well, Ivory did convince her, but he was completely wrong. She botched the job, that's sure. Bates and Smith do a very good job, I'm not sure Adjani does. Anyway, I don't like to say these things about a movie director I admire so much, but truth before everything. I shall wipe my tears away watching Maurice and The remains of the day, truly the best of his movies.

It was not an easy film to watch, but watch it, I did. I did because I read Rhys in the 60s, and the book that drove this film among them. It does follow that story, but perhaps as other reviewers noted translating the novel to the screen was too much, too soon, or too literal. Smith carries the film, while Bates and Adjani appear overly dramatic and disconnected as lovers. The desperation of Marya (Adjani) is somewhat trivialized, while the Paris in which the story unfolds is nearly glorified but presented exactly how I image it in the 20s & 30s. Marya, while not literally Jean Rhys herself, is a reasonable facsimile and her doomed relationship with her first husband, and Ford Madox Ford became the basis of Quartet. In thinking about how the story plays out I remember how vulnerable and lost the author was and how much of herself she stuffed into her writing. But in that writing was a subtlety that did not translate onto the screen.I gave it perhaps too high a vote, but it gets this 7 for its Ivory-Merchant treatment of painterly beauty which I always admire.

It's hard to say exactly why "Quartet" fails. There are certainly some good things to be said; Maggie Smith gives her character just the right mix of not-too-subtle cynicism and self-loathing, and the photography by Pierre Lhomme does a fine job of complementing the surroundings. But there is something missing. The Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala trio have always invested their stories with a strong compassion for their characters, lending a quiet urgency to the tone. Yet there is little of that feeling here. The desperation of Isabelle Adjani's Marya simply does not ring clear, perhaps because her emotions are kept at a distance from the viewer when they should be brought to the forefront of the story. Marya views Heidler (Alan Bates) as a dominating force, but her fears and his intimidation never develop into anything effective. Bates is an actor who can always be depended on to provide a good performance, but his character is not given enough weight to dominate the screen when he should. In films such as `Howards End' and `The Remains of the Day,' the emotional conflicts between the characters drive the story and keep the (attentive) viewer involved; here, the conflicts do not spurn enough interest because the motivations of those involved are not very clear. The overall effect of "Quartet" is very cold and somber, with few, if any, memorable results.