Crossing Beethoven

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): *** {add a star if you’re a Ninth Symphony fan}

Music is front, center and as gorgeous as you might expect in Copying Beethoven, one of Agnieszka Holland's (Europa Europa, The Secret Garden) more commercial efforts that, sadly, didn't find the classy mainstream audience who might have embraced it. That the movie is also terribly flawed by dialog occasionally both stilted and foolishly vernacular ("He mooned me!" notes the heroine about her composer/boss) will give nay-sayers ample opportunity to dismiss it. But if you're among those who consider Beethoven's Ninth Symphony to be one of the world's musical treasures, I urge you to give the film a shot.

Ms. Holland offers us that rare movie that takes great music seriously while attempting (and largely succeeding) in showing how it might have been composed and--especially breathtaking--produced at the time of its creation. Holland and her inspired cast and crew actually compress Beethoven's final symphony into less than 15 minutes of screen time without losing its brilliance and beauty. This is indeed the high point of the film; those lucky enough to see and hear it will probably rush out to purchase the entire symphony (if they don't own it already), listening to it anew with an expanded appreciation of some of the details concerning how it might have come about.

When I call the cast inspired, I believe these actors probably were. Ed Harris makes a masterful Beethoven and is complemented beautifully by Diane Kruger (Joyeux Noel, Troy) in what is certainly her best role to date. These two are surrounded by other fine actors: Joe Anderson (as Ludwig's naughty nephew), Phyllida Law (as a convent head) and the ubiquitous and always good Matthew Goode (as Kruger's affianced). The photography and location are stunning, no surprise, and the nod to feminism--even if the Kruger character has been created out of whole cloth--seems appropriate. If Ms. Holland and her writers Christopher Wilkinson and Stephen J. Rivele use a few too many clichés to get us from beginning to end, well, so be it. Their love for the creative process, and their genuine attempt to understand it, wins the day.