Films about violinists and violin-makers are hardly calculated to set the pulses racing, but here's one that rewards the patient viewer. Apart from heroine Emmanuelle Béart's outburst in a café towards the end, this is, by modern standards, a remarkably subtle and civilised entertainment that carefully conceals its true motives from the audience as successfully as the central character, Stéphane (Daniel Auteuil), to whom the girl, already committed to his partner, finds herself attracted. Béart's violin-fingering - she learnt the instrument for the film - is remarkable and Auteuil's ultra-thoughtful and skilled performance will amaze those who only know him as the idiot nephew from the Jean de Florette films (in the second of which Béart had the lead). The plot gives us layers on layers - a bit like the violins themselves.

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