Rating: 
Summary: Wickedly Beautiful
Review: "The Piano" stars Holly Hunter, Sam Neill, Harvey Keitel, and Anna Paquin. It received several Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. Its brilliant quality proves that every nomination was deserved. The plot of a mute woman, Ada, whose only form of expression is through her piano was written beautifully. Jane Campion's Oscar winning efforts express her highly creative outlook in film. It combines drama, mystery, and romance. Many twists and turns arise as Ada falls in love with a mysterious man not her husband. The movie's gloomy theme blends perfectly with every event; past, present, or future. It reminds the audience of the danger that certain characters are in, regardless of what they say or do. The cinematography and the editing wonderfully contribute to this effect.The art design proves that the artists researched the European styles of the 1800's. Every detail is flawless. The costumes were equally wonderfully crafted. Every detail on the set contributes to the movie plot, adding its necessary theme. Every actor performs their roles beautifully. Holly Hunter's Best Actress Oscar winning role, Ada, was highly emotional. Only one other performer has won the Oscar for a lead role for playing a mute person(Marlee Matlin, 1986). She never holds back a drop of heart and soul through her character. Her task of expressing her character's emotions through only non-verbal means is highly difficult. She mastered it. This is her best role in her career. Anna Paquin's Best Supporting Actress Oscar winning role, Ada's daughter Flora, is amazing. This made her the second youngest Oscar winner for acting efforts(age 11). No words can describe how amazing and how underrated she is. Her European accent is as flawless as her acting. Harvey Keitel offers his own mystery theme in his Oscar nominated role as Ada's gothic non-husband lover. Sam Neill's role as Ada's wife is brilliant. His character's rage scenes are perfect. All other actors, major or minor, also perform their roles wonderfully. "The Piano" offers an amazing roller coaster ride, though some scenes may become highly depressing. Those looking for a power drama should watch this movie. This offers high emotions that forces the audience to feel what that characters are feeling. Many viewers will be entertained throughout. Some may have to watch this movie multiple times to fully understand the events thoroughly. Many have watched this ten times, and they continue to discover new, interesting details. "The Piano" will be a classic in the upcoming years.
Rating: 
Summary: Who wants to see Harvey's p _n_ s?
Review: If your answer is yes, then the Piano is your movie. Too bad we only have stars to choose from, I would have definitely given this one two spheres if I could have. It's not a bad movie if you like to watch a mute and see a man who should not be revealing himself reveal himself. I leave it to you, but be warned curiosity killed the cat and damn near took me. Be Careful. Archibald Lasalles
Rating: 
Summary: A dumb film about a dumb woman
Review: The heroine of this film has to be high on the list of most irritating characters I have ever encountered. She doesn't speak, though it is never explained why, my own guess is that she just likes driving everyone crazy. She allows herself to be married off to a man in New Zealand who she evidnetly doesn't like, again we are never told why. Her husband won't let her take her beloved piano into their home, why on earth not? Playing the piano was an essential female accomplishment in those days, every middle-class household had a piano. What kind of a woman uses her own daughter as a go-between between herself and her lover? Apart from being a thoroughly immoral thing to do, it is also extremely stupid. Everyone knows no child can keep a secret. I think her husband shows reamrkable forebearance in only cutting her finger off, personally I think he'd have done better to cut her head off.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a Good Movie
Review: To me, this film was not very good. It didn't pass any feelings through me like most good movies. I would say that the story for this movie is sick and kind of stupid, and some of the actors (not to mention any names) did not do a good job playing in it. The movie did entertain me enough, though, to sit through the whole thing. I totally fell in love with the music. To me, just hearing the music in it was worth the long watch.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: One of the best movies I have seen yet. Though Hunter seems to have little expression on her face this is not true. Her eyes and the slight movments of her mouth and eye brows truly express what she is feeling and just how deeply she feels. Flora is a bit over the top with the brat act but it is obvious why she is like this. Harvey Keitel does great with his intense character. You can feel the lust and even a little bit of passion that he feels for Ada. Over all I think it has a good story line and rather good character development. This is a movie definatly for those of us that are a bit more artistic and passionate about it. I probably wouldn't recomend this for childern under 14 (maybe even 17) because of the nudity but it is entirly up to you.
Rating:
Summary: Good Movie
Review: I highly recommend this movie. However, I find myself disagreeing with the person who suggested that art house productions are an acid test of how deep a person you really are. You only need to look outside of your window to know you are deep. As for the soul, what's to say that we don't have one? This film greets us with that suggestion, as such, and guessing is one thing compared to another: not proof. Check your baggage out the door. There is no right way to enjoy this film, only let it soak into you. If you love this film you'll surely enjoy the way the songs melt into you from the skin up.
Rating:
Summary: Pretentious and Dull
Review: Jane Campion's "The Piano" comes across as nothing more than a pretentious and dull piece of melo-dramatic cinema. Its only saving grace is the beutiful cinematography of New Zealand's untamed wilderness and a strong performance by Harvey Keitel. One finds it hard to associate with either Ada (Holly Hunter) or her pretentious daughter Flora (Anna Paquin.) Their prudish and overly self-righteous personalities simply evoke no sympathy. Throughout the movie I was hoping either Sam or Harvey would take Anna Paquin's character and either drown her or throw her off the cliff to make her shut up. One comes out feeling that if Ada's beloved piano and previous cozy life were so important to her she should have stayed home in Scotland instead of coming to the jungles of New Zealand. Harvey Keitel's performance as a Maori or half-Maori was the definitely best in the movie. Overall, a very forgettable melo-drama about a prudish woman with a pretentious and insolent daughter who both feel that life in the colonies should revolve only around their needs. A real yawner where the only things that keep you awake are the overly irritating temper tantrums of Anna Paquin's character.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing - Beautiful - Brilliant
Review: I missed this movie in the theaters 10 years ago, and saw it for the first time purely by chance on HBO recently. I was so enchanted that I watched each of the next three showings in the very same day, and then bought the DVD for my collection. It is one of the most unique, truly deep, thought provoking, awe-inspiring, movies I've seen in a while. The drama is almost Biblical, the love story almost Shakespearian in quality (think Othello). I was enraptured by the music, the crashing waves, and the amazing synergy between the players. And Harvey Keitel - who knew? Those gangster/tough guy roles just don't even touch this man's talent. George Baines is intense, tender, passionate, a total jerk - so it would seem - but underneath the gruff exterior lies the heart of a prince. Keitel really puts it all out there, literally and figuratively. It's a risky role and it works for him. Holly Hunter was spectacular, as usual, but in this film the fast-talking, high-energy woman you came to know in "Broadcast News" or "Texas Cheerleader Murdering Mom" must dig deep. Ada's silences surpass powerful, she conveys more with her facial expressions than most people say out loud in a lifetime. Speech is clearly an overrated and overused form of communication. Ada's will is almost a character onto itself. And one can see clearly that no one is more surprised by her emerging emotions and unfolding events than she. Sam Neill's character is sad, broken, pathetic, frightening, and your basic worst nightmare all at once. Jealousy is indeed and ugly and and devastating emotion. I disagree with a few of the other reviewers about Anna Paquin's character, Flora. Some saw Flora as innocent. Watch closely. She's diabolical, almost schizophrenic. She has the wide-eyed, innocent visage of a pathological liar. Note the scene with the photograph, the dog under the porch, her conversations with the other women in the village (where you begin to see her turn on her mother as she realizes that she's being replaced as the center of her mother's universe) and when her final act of betrayal results in horrific violence (don't think for a second that she didn't know what she was doing), then note her repentence, and subsequent absolution (the soiled angel wings in the river), and her redemption. Miss Paquin could never be considered a "child star" she's already shown more maturity than many adults in film today. And of course, the Piano, the center of it all, Ada's voice, the music in this movie is so moving and expressive, so perfect for each scene. My next purchase is the soundtrack. In sum, heart-achingly beautiful, devastatingly real and dream-like all at once. I highly recommend.
Rating:
Summary: ethereal...simply breathtaking!!!
Review: warning: watching this movie will put you in a dreamlike and emotionally charged and effected state for hours after you watch it, for me it was days.
I have never seen a movie that has had such a profound effect on the people who view it, myself included. It is not the kind of emotional experiance where you cry throughout the movie. It is the kind that makes you gasp and keeps you motionless. The plot could be seen as a simple love triangle, between the mute woman Ada (Holly Hunter), her husband of an arranged marrage (Sam Neil) and her slightly gruff and seclusive neighbor (Harvey Keitel).
It is much more than that, it is also a story about Ada's love for her Piano. The love for her tool to speak. The way her neighbor George Bains understands this love and her husband does not. The casting for the movie is perfect. Holly Hunter does not speak, nor does she cry and wail when she is angry or sad. She simply FEELS, and we can easily see what she is feeling without her showing us. Her Academy Award was well deserved.
Anna Paquin, who also recieved an Academy Award for her performance as Ada's mischivous but angleic daughter, is brilliant. Sam Neil's charachter is not as developed as some of the others. But the sadness seen in his eyes makes you wonder what bad things have happened to him in tha past, for you can tell by how easily he gets frusterated with Ada that something else has happened.
Harvey Keitel has played a difficult character, because he makes a very crude offer to Ada concerning how she can get her Piano back. Written on a peice of paper, George Bains would seem like a perverted creep...but Keitel plays his character with warmth, and immediatly you know that Bains knows what he is doing, and you trust him. The real supporting cast would also have to be the cinematography and the music. Both contribute an intensity to the film that is priceless.
A Tip: watch this movie at night or when you have a whole day off, it will alter your mood for the day.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Movie
Review: It's the greatest movie I ever saw. I suggest you to watch this movie. I watched it 4 times already and will watch it again sometime.
:-D
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