You know how television is becoming like the movies, more expansive and more expensive? Well, what if the movies were to meet television halfway, becoming smaller and more routine? The result, I’m sure, would be something like Quartet, Dustin Hoffman’s first directorial effort since 1978’s Straight Time. If you ran past this film at speed, you could almost mistake it for an episode of Downton Abbey. It’s set in a country house. Maggie Smith is among its cast members. And it’s borrowed actors from small-screen series such as Gavin and Stacey and The Vicar of Dibley. Just the ticket for a lazy Sunday night in.
Except Quartet is not nearly so grand as Downton Abbey. The country house in question is a modern-day care home for retired musicians; and Smith’s character, Jean Horton, arrives there not as an imperious dowager, but as a faded opera star with an achy breaky heart and a please-don’t-breaky hip.
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