If you think they don't make 'em like they used to, this story of an eccentric piano tutor and her young star pupil will prove you wrong. Shirley MacLaine gives a fiery performance in the title role: it's a tribute to her acting skills that she's able to play the character when young with utter conviction, looking just like the MacLaine of 25 years before. It's an actors' film, in fact, but by no means unworthy of your interest, even if a shade too much piano-playing may make some eyelids droop. Navin Chowdhry, a rather downcast-looking but acceptable newcomer, is the latest student taken on by Madame S, to the delight of his social-climbing mother (Shabana Azmi) who sees him as a teenage concert prodigy raking in fat fees. Madame S, alas for mum, has her sights on higher things and draws the boy gleefully into her little circle of fellow-lodgers in a soon-to-be-demolished Georgian house. Unfortunately hungry agents, estate and talent, break up this ill-assorted family all too soon. Whether on piano or in the script, John Schlesinger's film, if quiet and not always absorbing, rarely strikes a wrong note.


©ipc tx. Film content from TVTimes