Beautifully photographed art house drivel

Rating: 4/10 (7 March 2008)

Since The Piano, writer/director Jane Campion's star has understandably dimmed and it is not hard to see why when viewing this heralded "success" from early in her career. Beautifully photographed and bizarre to a fault, The Piano exhibits much of Campion's excesses at their worst. Mute mail order bride Holly Hunter travels with illegitimate daughter Anna Paquin to meet new husband Sam Neill in 1850s New Zealand. They get off on the wrong foot immediately when Neill does not bring enough men to transport the huge and unexpected piano that Hunter brings with her from their disembarking point on the beach. The piano is subsequently claimed by a half-Maori neighbor (Harvey Keitel), with whom Hunter ends up bartering sexually for its return, much to the chagrin of her cuckolded new husband. Campion definitely gets points for originality, but then most of her work is nothing if not original. Incredibly the film was embraced by many as a sort of pseudo-feminist tale, but one really has to stretch it to envision that. Yes, Hunter's Ada exerts her power to deprive her new husband of her favors after the abandonment of her precious piano, but she is also presented as a neglectful mother, a casual whore, self-destructively suicidal, and a rather nasty and obnoxious all-around individual. All things that should make her a fascinating cinematic study, so it is then a mystery as to why she is so dreadfully uninteresting and tedious. We never really get insight into her character and her actions in the final moments with the piano are impenetrable from any standpoint. This leaves a veritable hole right at the center of the film, and we never understand the obsession that the others harbor for her. The film is beautifully shot and scored, and one must applaud Campion for not dulling down the erotic aspects of the film. Keitel (cast against type) and Neill do fairly well, but it would have been interesting to see them switch roles to see if this improved the sluggish chemistry or not. Paquin performs capably as the neglected young daughter prone to wild storytelling. Many have gone overboard in heaping praise on Hunter's work as the mute central character, but I find her quite unappealing and overrated here. Depriving Hunter of her ear-shattering Texas twang actually helps make her performance easier to give as at least vocally she does not have to convince us as a woman of the period. However, the remainder of her performance is basically summed up by many stern looks and a couple of tantrums where she throws things around (while giving further stern looks). Her one-note effort could be a main reason while Ada fails to connect in any meaningful way, at least with this viewer. Incredibly, for a film with a feminist reputation, both the lead character and the film in general are incredibly misogynistic, proving that one need not be male to be sexist. By the time the film crawls to its conclusion, you may well have wished you had not joined Hunter and company on her voyage.