| Dir. Bernard Rose, US, 2008, 100 mins
Cast: Danny Huston, Elisabeth Röhm, Matthew Yang King
Review by Carol Allen
Based, I suspect a touch loosely, on Tolstoy's novel of the same name, Rose has kept this movie very intimate by shooting and editing it himself and by casting long time collaborator Huston, who also starred in Rose's Ivan's XTC , which was in turn based on another Tolstoy story "The Death of Ivan Ilyich".
Apart from their origins and a strong performance from Huston, there are other similarities between the two films. Both are set in the bizarre and often morally skewed world of Hollywood and both open with the tragedy which ends the story and then work backwards to how it happened. Ivan started out with its central character dead. Here we first meet Edgar (Huston) covered in blood and it doesn't take long to work out whose blood it is going to be.
The subject of the film is obsessive jealously. Edgar meets Abby (Röhm), a concert pianist, at a party and steals her away from her boyfriend. When she finds herself pregnant, they marry. Four years later the couple and their children are living the luxury life in Beverley Hills. Edgar's career is flourishing but Abby, now a full time wife and mother and missing her music, is feeling increasingly unfulfilled, which is putting a strain on their marriage. Edgar throws her a bone of comfort by suggesting she perform at a charity benefit he's organising. He introduces her to young violinist Aiden (Yang King) and they start working together on the Beethoven sonata of the title. But Edgar soon becomes jealous of the amount of time they are now spending together and becomes convinced that they are having an affair.
The shooting of the film is very impressionistic and the structure, which darts around in flashbacks, makes it difficult at first to get to grips with the story. Huston though is always a powerful actor and he doesn't disappoint in this. As a study of the self inflicted torments of sexual jealousy, it is strong stuff. A contemporary Othello, who is also his own Iago. Röhm as Abby also gives a particularly strong performance. Despite the Hollywood setting, she's not a plastic West Coast beauty but looks and behaves like a real woman and there's a very convincing sexual intimacy between the husband and wife. Aiden in contrast is deliberately a rather an insubstantial character. Despite Edgar's description of his feelings in voice over, we as viewers objectively watching the action never believe for a moment there's anything going on between the two musicians, while Edgar himself rarely gives any sign of his inner violence and turmoil in public. We only know what's going on because we are privy to his private moments and what's going on in his head, which points up the difference between objective and subjective reality.
The film overall is hypnotic in its emotional power though sometimes a bit soporific in pace but the resolution, when it comes, is both startling and tragic.
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