Customer Reviews

Impromptu

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This 1991 movie directed by James Lepine is an absolute charm. It's a romantic comedy, it's a historical piece and a colorful introduction to the music of Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt and the life and writings of Madame George Sand Aurore Dudevant. The romantic comedy is well-written, the actors are doing top-notch performances and the music is heaven. I don't know yet if there is a soundtrack but it's likely there is and it must be beautiful. George Sand was the pen name of the feminist writer Aurore Dudevant who scandalized proper Victorian society in the 19th century by dressing as a man, smoking cigars, abandoning her wealthy and respected husband to live the liberal lifestyle of a bohemian writer of novels. She had many lovers, including Alfred De Musset (who is played in this film by Mandy Patinkin)and her most famous lover, Frederic Chopin. It is their love story that this movie focues on. Stars Judi Davis as George Sand, Hugh Grant as Chopin and Bernadette Peters as the Countess Marie D'Agoult. I will not give away the answer. But Chopin, though he never married Sand, was greatly influenced by his knowing her and his most productive period of composing piano music came after their heartbreaking seperation. Chopin died young of tubercolosis. It's very possible that he loved George Sand but I'm thinking that for Sand, no man was really ever good enough for her. After all, she was the embodiment of the feminist, independent single woman who did'nt really need marriage or love.

Judi Davis is doing an Oscar winning performance as George Sand, who is ultimately a woman who belongs to no one and who lives life to the fullest. She has raised children to be as creative as she is and taken full responsibility for her children as well as for her elderly mother. Bored of the dull life after her divorce from the father of her children, she takes her current lover to the French countryside. There, she is invited by a wealthy hostess to her estate. The drama heightens in a soap opera sort of way when none other than Alfred De Musset the poet and ex-lover of Sand shows up. Her jealous boyfriend, Malfitte, challenges him to a duel. Meanwhile, Sand has fallen for Chopin, who is her polar opposite. While she is free, intense, devil-may-care and very healthy, Chopin is reserved, emotional, sensitive, refined and suffering of bad health with tubercolosis. Their relationship is accurate to truth but not in the way the film depicts. The disaster that happens in the country estate, comedically produced, never really happened. Bernadette Peters delivers a terrific performance as well as the scheming and bitter Marie D'Agoult, whose own marriage to Franz Liszt after having many children with him, including Cosima who later marries Richard Wagner, but that's another story and even another movie. This is a well-done movie with lots of charm and witty scenes. I especially enjoyed the entire portion in the country estate, in which the artist Delacroix, Franz Liszt and Chopin discuss over dinner the existence of God in front of a priest, put on a satirical farce play that ends badly and Sand's adorable children who are always finding some excuse to play with explosives and dynomite.

This film centers around the bold and controversial nineteenth century author, George Sand, an unconventional woman who dressed as a man and flouted the social and sexual mores of her day. It is a wickedly funny film: sharp, biting, and clever.

The sexually rapacious Ms. Sand (Judy Davis) sets her sights on the frail and finicky Frederic Chopin (Hugh Grant). Leaving a trail of outraged lovers in her wake, she devotes herself, heart and soul, to making Chopin her lover. Along the way, she finds obstacles thrust in her path, usually placed there by her erstwhile friend, Marie D'Agoult (Bernadette Peters), who is also smitten with Chopin, although she, herself, is the mistress of Franz Liszt (Julian Sand).

Ms. Sand contrives to be with Chopin at all costs, in her quest to wrest his affections and capture his heart. She even brazenly invites herself for a stay in the country at the home of the Duchess D'Antan (Emma Thompson), once she discovers that Chopin is to be a guest, along with other artists of the period. This makes for some wickedly madcap moments. As her quarry makes Ms. Sand pull out all the stops, the viewer will be delightfully entertained by their antics.

Judy Davis is sublime as the controversial Ms. Sand, infusing the role with intelligence and charm. Hugh Grant is perfect in the role of Chopin, who is overwhelmed by the persistent Ms. Sand. Emma Thompson, in one of her earlier roles, is absolutely hilarious as the Duchess D'Artan, the patroness of the arts, playing her character with complete comedic relish. The rest of the supporting ensemble also provide stellar performances. All in all, this is a very enjoyable and unusual period piece.

Being a Hugh Grant fan, I had great hopes for such a well reviewed movie on Amazon, but boy was I mistaken. I am quite sure Hugh Grant himself must be embarrassed with such a performance.

This movie had absolutely no story line or plot, paper-thin acting, horrendous values and was a complete waste of time. I managed to make it through the entire thing with the vain hope that somehow the production might redeem itself in the end, but alas, this was not to be the case.

To anyone considering a purchase of this movie, I strongly advise you to think twice so you are not disappointed as we were.

This is an excellent film which depicts with some humor and intrigue the life of Chopin. Hugh Grant and Judy Davis play fantastic parts. One actually gets a feel for the era in which Chopin lived. The music is stupendous and invites an even greater appreciation for Chopin's talents.
Thoroughly enjoyable!

where i first saw it on screen at a local cinema. wit, grace, charm, and granted yes, somewhat affected performances, but still a sweetness manages to come through. love & music, eternal muses, are showcased in their manic, most evocative forms here & are captured in all their energy & wit of an era of change, challenge & growth culturally...thought the 1960s were a time for pushing boundaries? it has nothing on the 1830s/40s for experimentation & artistic endeavor. watch the movie!

A witty and charming account of 19th century romance.

Poor Mallefille - you really have to pity him. Not only has he become the lover of the woman who employed him to tutor her children (and whose reputation is hard to take for his pathologically jealous nature anyway); only to be dumped again in short order, when she has had enough of him and his fits of jealousy. Not only does he have to watch her exchange witticisms and confidences with a host of other men, many of them belonging to the Parisian art circles where he himself will never be taken seriously (and God knows what else they may be exchanging or have exchanged in the past). Not only is he being bossed around by a woman who has taken a male pen name, insists on dressing in men's clothes, refuses to use a woman's saddle when riding (and what a horsewoman she is!) and prefers an afternoon out hunting to one sipping tea in the company of other ladies of society. No: after having taken all that, and having dared to demand the satisfaction to which he feels so justly entitled from her latest object of romantic interest, one feeble Polish composer named Chopin - only to see the guy fainting before the obligatory count has even gotten to "ten" and never raise his pistol at all - what does the wretched woman do? She seizes Chopin's weapon, fires at Mallefille, injures his arm and responds coolly, when he has finally overcome his shock and disbelief and inquires how, after all their time together, she could do such a thing: "It was easy. You're a menace to the future of art."

As this movie would have it, the above scene (never to be revealed to Chopin, in order not to hurt his pride) brought about the final turning point in one of history's most famous love stories, the romance between prolific French writer George Sand (born 1804 as Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin and married, in 1822, to Baron Casimir Dudevant, whom she left in 1835) and quintessential Romantic composer and Polish musical prodigy Frederic (Fryderyk) Chopin, six years her junior, who after a life-long struggle with his health succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of 39 years. While taking some liberties with the real course of events, "Impromptu" does portray their relationship up to their departure for Majorca, as well as the story's backdrop in 19th century Paris and rural France, with an admirably light touch and in loving detail; marvelously framed by a score consisting almost exclusively of pieces by Chopin himself. Judy Davis and a deliciously young and fragile Hugh Grant are the perfect embodiment of Sand and her "Chopinet" - she, a feisty no-nonsense woman used to fighting for her place in the world, who can nevertheless lose herself completely in Chopin's music, which she considers divine; he, sickly, uptight and at first severely taken aback by her manner which so contradicts accepted female behavior that he almost doubts she is a woman at all (a remark actually attributed to Chopin and resounding in the movie's interpretation of their initial encounter, after Sand has hidden in his room to hear him play and leaves her hiding place when he stops, pleading with him to continue, only to be rebuked by a seriously upset Chopin: "Rumor has it that you are a woman, so I must ask you to leave my private chambers. ... This is ridiculously improper - and frightening as well!")

Although Sand and Chopin were really introduced to each other by their joint friend Franz Liszt and his companion Marie d'Agoult (here portrayed with fervor and panache by Julian Sands and Bernadette Peters), the movie ingeniously places their first meeting onto the country estate of the Duke d'Antan and his wife Claudette, self-declared patroness of the arts (played by an exuberant Emma Thompson, who milks the role for all it's worth and then some), who has assembled the cream of the Parisian arts scene; besides Chopin, Liszt and Marie most notably Sand's former lover, poet Alfred de Musset (Mandy Patinkin) and painter Eugene Delacroix (Ralph Brown). Sand, who is actually not among the invitees, spontaneously proceeds to invite herself when she hears that Chopin will be among the guests, because she has wanted to meet him ever since she first heard him play in the Paris salon of Baroness Laginsky (Elizabeth Spriggs) - thus guaranteeing plenty of tumultuous scenes between herself and de Musset as well as between the latter and Mallefille (Georges Corraface), who (likewise uninvited) appears shortly after her in dogged pursuit of the woman who has recently dumped him; a fact he is patently unwilling to accept.

Although initially rejected by Chopin, Sand is not in the least willing to give up on him; and she greedily accepts Marie's advice after their return to Paris: "He is not a man; he's a woman. ... You must win him as a man wins a woman. If anyone can do it, you can." And while Marie's counsel is far less disinterested and well-meaning than George thinks, in the end her new tactics do the trick; albeit only after a series of heated encounters between the two would-be lovers, Chopin and de Musset and Chopin and Marie; and not before Sand has lost her mother (Anna Massey), her most undying champion. Chopin and Sand eventually become friends and - we are told - finally lovers after Mallefille has forever left the battlefield in shame.

Although there would be an estrangement between the star-crossed lovers shortly before Chopin's death, he did remain, as Sand wrote in her autobiography, the greatest love of her life; and in turn, the years they spent together are considered by many the most fertile years of his musical career. They both will live forever in their works - and this movie, which unfortunately went virtually undiscovered upon its 1991 release, is a wonderful, gentle reminder of the wealth of creativity and emotion they had to share.

No one is further removed from privileged upper class European society than I. However I found this film to be particularly satisfying as it really deals with the frailties, values, desires, and motivations that are common among all people regardless of class or surroundings. The thing that I find so telling about films like this and in a much different manner 'Barry Lyndon' is that they tend to debunk the myth of the gentile-refined aristocracy.

And even though I found the film quite pleasant and telling I am unable to give it 5 stars although it's not far from it. Certain characters (such as Mandy Patinkin's) are more accessory than integral to the true nature of the story. And by no means does his presence detract from the story but neither does it necessarily add to the story either in any significant way. (And i'm a big Mandy Patinkin fan by the way)

A very non-traditional love story.

Well worth viewing though.

Impromptu is one of those films that you hear about...an underground following, and an incredible good time. Why is it that these films are the ones we never see in the theatre, but are usually 3 times better than what we currently are offered at the local multiplex.

Judy Davis shines (as always) as authoress George Sand, a masculine woman writer who falls in love with the feminine pianist Chopin (played by Hugh Grant). Some fabulous writing here, and a chance for Judy Davis to let herself go and have fun. The script wouldn't exactly be Oscar nominated, but it is cleverly written, and the charactors are just too much fun.

The list of Hollywood names in this film was overwhelming when I first saw it...each offering their own unique talents to keeping the film together. It was fun to see so many serious actors playing comedic roles.

For fun, for romance, and for some awesome views of the French countryside, check out Impromptu...you'll be glad you did.