A Late Quartet

Look! A mainstream movie (with big actors) called A Late Quartet premiered last night in Toronto. Playing second violin we see Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken is the cellist, Catherine Keener (with her hand in what looks like second position) is the violist, and the first violinist is Mark Ivanir. Here's the trailer.



It looks like these actors spent enough time learning how to hold their instruments and bows to make plausible playing motions (at least left-hand-wise, and in first position, playing open strings). The bow arms are not so great, but I don't think that they would offend the general non-string-player audience member. But the movie is indeed enticing, the instruments are lovely, and you can't beat the soundtrack (the Brentano String Quartet is doing the actual playing).

I wonder if it will ever make it to a theater near me!

Here's one review, and here's another.

Here is the IMDB listing of the whole cast and crew.