It's based on the true story of the DuPre sisters, one -- Hilary (Rachel Griffiths) -- a talented flautist and the other -- Jackie (Emily Watson) -- an exceptional cellist. The movie examines their tempestuous relationship as Jackie first envies, then eclipses her sister. It's very good when the two are interacting -- both actresses fully deserved their nominations (though Watson was a bit too histrionic for my taste -- there's one scene where you practically see "Oscar Clip" flashing across the screen), and Griffiths especially deserves to win (she was nominated in Best Supporting Actress) for her subtle, elegant performance.
The movie needs a real long runway for take-off; it opens with the sisters as little girls and spends about 5 times as much time is needed on their childhood. It takes off when Griffiths and Watson take over the roles (small note, but they did an exceptional job of finding child actresses who looked like their grown-up counterparts, and their mother also has a strong physical resemblance to both. It's a minor point, but too often you see "siblings" who must have been adopted from two different ends of the gene pool. Plus, the actresses' faces fit their characters perfectly -- Griffiths is more sober, while Watson still looks like a child). The film tells the story first from Hilary's point of view -- as she abandons music because Jackie outshines her, marries, and settles into a comfortable country life with her conductor husband, only to see it threatened when Jackie, now a world-famous soloist, comes flying back into her life to try to take that away from her, too. Then we switch to Jackie's POV, but by then it's hard to muster any sympathy for her -- essentially the director shows us 45 minutes of inexcusable behavior, then spends another 45 minutes trying to excuse it. (Hilary wrote the book it's based on, which explains the bias.)
Director Anand Tucker is a bit too heavy-handed for a relationship-oriented film like this -- the script thuds with ponderous pronouncements like the mother saying to the two little girls, "If you want to stay together, you have to be as good [at music] as each other," and when Jackie is presented with a priceless cello, her teacher intones, "It will give you the world, but you must give yourself to it." Basically those are the two main drivers of Jackie's erratic, manipulative behavior, and it's grating to have them stated so baldly. The ending, too, is clumsy and maudlin as he reprises the scenes of the little girls that opened the film. But overall, it's an interesting movie, and it's worth seeing just to witness the wonderful chemistry between Griffiths and Watson.
A note for you locals: We saw it at the new Hoyts theater on Rte. 1 and grumbled a bit about how pricey the tickets were. But they showed NO commercials before the movie -- the last time I went to an AMC theater, I had to sit through FOUR commercials before the previews. I'm willing to pay an extra 50 cents in return for not having to put up with that. (I wasn't, however, willing to pay $3 for a small soda.)
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