“Quartet” features an excellent cast. Unfortunately, the four great actors in this film do not, in my opinion, fit their characters. Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Bill Connolly, and Pauline Collins are cast as four great opera singers who reside in a senior residence. The four had performed together in their younger years and now were scheduled to sing for a fund raiser for Beecham House’s gala. We never see these actors actually sing so maybe that is part of the reason why I just couldn’t buy the idea that they were opera singers. Rex Reed describes “Quartet” as “a film of so much affection, tenderness, and charm. ” The setting was charming. That’s about it.
If you see it, stick around for the closing credits. Many of the actors in the film were, at one time, famous in Britain in the fields of music and the cinema. A better recent movie with music as its theme is “The Late Quartet.”