beautiful melodrama

Rating: 8/10 (16 December 2014)

Ada McGrath (Holly Hunter) has been mute since she was 6 without a reason. She and her young daughter Flora (Anna Paquin) are brought over to New Zealand to marry Alisdair Stewart (Sam Neill). She communicates with Flora with sign language. Her piano is her prize possession and her voice. However Alisdair deems it too heavy to carry and leaves it on the beach. Then Alisdair sells the piano to his illiterate neighbor George Baines (Harvey Keitel). George proposes to sell it back to her with one visit for every piano key and she counters with just the black keys.
This is romance novel melodrama from director Jane Campion and it is epic. Everything works including the epic landscape. The pounding waves, the lush forest and the isolation becomes part of the story. It is filmed beautifully. The performances are great. Anna Paquin is precocious. Holly Hunter and Harvey Keitel are not the natural romantic pair but there is something touching about that.