The Piano Reviews

Holly Hunter won her Best Actress Oscar over some incredible competition – Emma Thompson, Angela Bassett, Debra Winger, and Stockard Channing – any of whom would have been a great choice. But there’s something about Hunter’s fierce, sensual Ada, a mute woman who expresses herself through her piano and her young daughter, Flora (Anna Paquin). The Piano tells the story of Ada’s regaining her voice, both literally and figuratively, and finding her sexuality in the harsh New Zealand landscape.

The film begins with Ada and Flora arriving on the New Zealand coast to meet Ada’s arranged husband, Stewart (Sam Neill). Over this tableau Ada narrates that she has not spoken since she was six-years-old and nobody, least of all herself, has any idea why. Ada’s giant hoop skirt and European airs, she’s originally from Scotland, are in stark contrast to the looser clothing of the Maori tribesman and Stewart. Much of The Piano sees her growing out of these European ideals, growing out of the forced silence and servitude expected of females, and into her own autonomous person. Quite a bit of her change in attitude comes through a romance between her and Baines (Harvey Keitel), a former whaler who lives on the island and has become one of the Maori.

During her initial meeting with her new husband, he decides to leave her piano on the beach because he does not want to carry it back to his home. When Ada has her daughter try to explain that she needs the piano as a form of communication, he replies that a silent woman has never bothered him. As their marriage progresses there is no warmth or love that grows between them. Flora prefers to create havoc and mischief, and then proclaim innocence as she purposefully misinterprets or edits out parts of the conversation. Once Stewart sells the piano to Baines that sets in motion a series of events which lead to Ada’s awakening and blossoming.

Baines removes the keys from the piano and promises them back to Ada if she will perform various seductive tasks. A bit questionable, but Baines and Ada have an immediate erotic connection, a meeting of the minds. She’s willing, and willful, to engage him in this back and forth. After a period of time, she has mastered his seductive games and flips them upon him. A romance and love develop between them. The color palette of the film, so far basked in harsh grays and blues, begins to warm into richer colors.

The cinematography by Stuart Dryburgh enhances Jane Campion’s script and directorial choices. It doesn’t just work well with the film, it allows many of the themes and emotions in the film to grow and prosper. Many of the images that linger in the imagination are painter-esque, like Paquin’s Flora frolicking on the beach while Ada plays the piano stuck in the sand. It’s sumptuous film-making, the kind of work that Michael Powell did with Jack Cardiff.

And Campion has chosen well with her four leading actors. Hunter makes Ada grim, dour, a person who lives in their own interior world, refusing to express or interact with the outside world. But as she plays her piano, she escapes and bursts with romantic and erotic longing. She also conveys Ada’s stubbornness; above all else she must have the piano. What’s most transfixing in the moments when Hunter plays the piano is how she transforms into an ethereal figure, losing herself in the music.

Anna Paquin’s work is fairly extraordinary. Child actors in movies can be overly precocious, falling back on their cuteness, or they can be directed to act like miniature versions of adults. Paquin has to straddle the line between being a normal little girl and the mouthpiece of her adult mother. Her Flora is spiteful, a naughty wood nymph who lies breathlessly for her own amusement. Paquin actually is a subtle master class in presenting someone who must say one thing with her voice, but communicate something entirely different with her body language as she speaks aloud for the mother who cannot.

Neill and Keitel offer great support to the two leading female roles. Neill starts off as a well-meaning, if cold and distant, husband who grows into a paranoid and fearful man. While Keitel starts off as a man who is all hard-edges and brutish behavior, before slowly melting away into a tender lover and surrogate father.

The Piano plays like one of the best adaptations of a gothic romance ever made. A totally original movie, with finely detailed and complex female characters in the lead, The Piano is easily a classic in my eyes. A gorgeous, sumptuous feast, a film that populates a specific area in time with unique characters and explores their world thoroughly.

I already saw this movie but since it was a while back and since it was available on Netflix, I was quite eager to check it out again. In fact, I remember it quite well when this movie was released, it was critically acclaimed and even managed to win the prestigious Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival. Anyway, I thought it was a rather unique movie with a mesmerizing mood. Indeed, the story was just fascinating, something I had never seen before, the directing by Jane Campion was very good and Holly Hunter easily gave the best performance of her career (she eventually won the Academy Award for the Best Actress, a prize completely deserved). Furthermore, back in those days, the great Harvey Keitel was making an impressive come-back thanks to his performance in ‘Reservoir Dogs’. He was one of my favorite actors at the time and he was really good in this movie as well, continuing his winning streak, it is a shame this renaissance didn’t last long and he is involved nowadays either in some weak blockbusters or some underwhelming obscure features. Of course, there was something rather creepy about how their relationship did start but the end-result was incredibly sensual. You might also wonder how this specific woman and this specific man could end up with each other since they had nothing in common but, personally, I don't believe that you have to necessarily fall in love with someone who should be exactly the same as you are, in the contrary. Concerning Jane Campion, even though she had an interesting career afterwards, her following films didn't have such a huge impact like this one. However, she did make an impressive come-back almost 30 years later with 'The Power of The Dog' which was a huge critical success, even if I myself didn't really care much for it. Anyway, to conclude, I thought it was a really impressive drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

Holly hunter , a voluntary mute, is forced by her father to marry sam neill, a stranger living in outback new zealand. the only thing important to holly is her piano and her 12 year old daughter -anna paquin. she has a hellish time with her new 'husband' who is totally introverted sexually. she then meets harvey keitel who brings her beach -stranded piano overland throuh the wilds of 19th century nz. holly is engaged to teach him to play the piano as a prelude to his plan to seduce her. watch the movie-- it will amaze you.

This film really inspired me because obviously it is quite a disturbing film but it is really a beautiful film to that people can look at in different ways. I think the main inspiration for me of this film was that Ada used her piano to express herself and to show her beautiful colours but after she loves it so much, it sort of takes over her life. It made me feel really tense because of Adas affair with Baines and also more about Adas daughter Flora aswell. I think the one thing that I loved so much about this film was that everything about it was so powerful. What can I say? The acting was absolutely outstanding from the whole cast.


Holly Hunter delivers an absolutely phenomenonal performance as Ada McGrath. Her performance really inspired me an awful lot because her performance and her win of the Oscar proved an absolutely huge and also very true key point. That key point is: Acting isnt just words. Ada McGarth is a mute woman who does not speak at all. It is Hollys facial expressions and the emotions that she uses in this film that earned her the Oscar win. Holly was really good and really clever at sign language which was another excellent point of her performance in this film. Her performance is one of my new all time favourite leading actress performance of all time because it truly shows what acting really is. Also, Holly shows us something that not many actors have shown with their characters and that is to believe in the actor with the character and to try and believe that the character and actor is a real person. Harvey Keitel's performance as George Baines was another very powerful performance in this film but I have to say that Keitel made Baines like a total pervert and that he was using her for sex and first but then he truly fell in love with her. I liked Sam Niell in this film but I have never seen him play any character like this before. He made Alisdair Stewart a really powerful, emotional and quite sick and cold character to come across. I loved Anna Paquins performance too as Flora McGarth. Her character was very powerful, emotional and very clever character too because of being able to speak for her mother from sign language to actual English. She is like an interpreter so to speak. Anna's voice was totally different in The Piano compared to her real life voice. Flora is like a real hero because she tries to help her mother not only because of her not speaking and her having trouble with her husband but mostly because she is one of the very few close people to Ada who appreciate Adas love for her piano which makes Anna Paquins performance one of the best young actor/actress performances of all time.


I loved everything about the direction from Jane Campion because this film was really well filmed and adapted together to make a masterpiece. The writing of this film also makes it a masterpiece too because of the heartbreaking, touching and drastic lines that are spoken by the characters (apart from Ada). This film shows that female directors aswell as male directors can make excellent films too. Another brilliantly filmed masterpiece from a female director was Lost In Translation which was directed by awesome director but crap actress Sofia Coppola. I havent seen any of Jane Campion's other films before but I need to now. This film is a typical romantic film because there is a lot of love between the characters. This is Titanic like film as far as the romance is concerned. It is like a romantic-period and period-drama film.


I would probably say that probably is Holly Hunters best performance even though this is the only live action film I have seen her in. I have never heard her actually speak in a live action film after only seeing The Piano and The Incredibles. After seeing Anna Paquin in the X-Men trilogy, I have to say that this is probably her best film too. I dont think anything at all disappointed me with this film because everything about it was simply superb. I can only finish my review by saying that this film is a masterpiece and was a third of the five nominees of Best Picture 1993 that are all masterpieces including The Fugitive and Schindlers List aswell as The Piano.

Pretentious, with stunning cinematography. Great for arguments.