Not much happens and what there is mostly doesn't relate to the other parts of the film

Rating: 3/10 (26 December 2015)

Michael Caine is Fred Ballinger, a retired UK orchestral conductor and composer on holiday at a Swiss resort spa with his daughter Lena (Rachel Weisz) and old friend, movie maker Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel). The Queen's Emissary arrives asking Fred to conduct his most famous composition Simple Songs for Prince Phillip's birthday concert. The contrasts between apparently happily retired Fred and Mick, who is having a hard time of making his current movie provide interesting contrasts, and Caine and Keitel look like they genuinely enjoyed working with each other on this one. Rachel Weisz as Fred's daughter Lena has some success at linking apparently unrelated scenes.
But mostly there are long moody silences with gorgeous Swiss backdrops, hotel entertainers struggling to captivate their onlookers and sequences that seem to provide little except bemusement about what they were about and why they were there. Every now and then we get some light relief in the form of voluptuous naked women, tantalising scenes in swimming pools or forests, pop song video clips, Adolph Hitler and an overweight soccer player demonstrating that a big belly can assist in juggling a tennis ball with your feet.
It struck me there were too many ideas, and the spa hotel setting makes it easy for other guests to appear without rhyme or reason. Too many ideas leads to the important ones being diluted, or not having enough time to develop.
If it's deep and meaningful, sorry, it sailed right past me.