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Pianist, The
Focus Features


8.6

based on 40 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 88 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for violence and brief strong language

Starring Adrien Brody, Daniel Caltagirone, Thomas Kretschmann, Frank Finlay, Maureen Lipman, Emilia Fox, Ed Stoppard, and Julia Rayner

Wladyslaw Szpilman, a brilliant Polish pianist, a Jew, escapes deportation. Forced to live in the heart of the Warsaw ghetto, he shares the suffering, the humiliation and the struggles. He manages to escape and hides in the ruins of the capital. A German officer comes to his aid and helps him to survive. (Focus Features)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Musical
WRITTEN BY:	Ronald Harwood Wladyslaw Szpilman (book)
DIRECTED BY:	Roman Polanski
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: May 27, 2003 Video: December 31, 1969 Theatrical: December 27, 2002
RUNNING TIME:	148 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	UK / France / Germany / Poland / Netherlands

Received 7 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director (Roman Polanski, who won the award) and Best Actor (Adrien Brody, also a winner). Also received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture. Named Best Picture of 2002 by the Boston Society of Film Critics and the National Society of Film Critics. Winner of the Palme d'Or, 2002 Cannes Film Festival

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Polanski, himself a survivor of Nazi-occupied Poland, has created a near-masterpiece.

100

Boston Globe Ty Burr

There are three Poles in The Pianist -- Szpilman, Polanski, and Frederic Chopin. Of the three, fittingly, Chopin speaks the loudest.

100

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Roman Polanski's new movie may be the greatest historical film centered on an enigmatic character since Lawrence of Arabia.

100

Salon.com Charles Taylor

The director seems to be saying that, for survivors, art may be a way back to our finer selves -- extraordinary.

100

Slate David Edelstein

The best film of 2002.

100

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A great movie on a powerful, essential subject -- the Holocaust years in Poland -- directed with such artistry and skill that, as we watch, the barriers of the screen seem to melt away.

100

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

One of the great Holocaust films.

100

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

A beautiful story, told in measured cadences by a master of old-timey narrative compression and expression.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

It's no wonder that Polanski, himself an artist who has survived a series of nightmares, should tell it so naturally and powerfully.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The result is a movie, and Cannes Palme d'Or winner, of riveting power and sadness, a great match of film and filmmaker -- and star, too.

Dallas Observer Andy Klein

There have been other films dealing with the Jewish ghettos during the Nazi occupation of Poland -- some very good -- but The Pianist, the latest feature from Roman Polanski, may be the best.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The results are masterful, admirably unsentimental, and never boring, if also a little stodgy.

Newsweek David Ansen

This powerful, precision-made movie offers hope as well -- an act of kindness from a German officer that saves the pianist’s life, the music that sustains his soul.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

Never before has a fiction film so clearly and to such devastating effect laid out the calculation of the Nazi machinery of death and its irrationality.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Polanski, who was a Jewish child in Krakow when the Germans arrived in September 1939, presents Szpilman's story with bleak, acid humor and with a ruthless objectivity that encompasses both cynicism and compassion.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

Polanski’s strongest and most personally felt movie.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Szpilman takes to performing sonatas in thin air, eyes closed, those jittery fingers stroking nothing but air. It's a wonderful moment in a wonderful, ghastly film, and one of the most moving arguments for the redemptive powers of art ever made.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

If The Pianist isn't quite as devastating as "Schindler's List" -- the movie with which all other Holocaust movies must be compared -- it's because Polanski isn't interested in an expansive view of the war.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

After an hour, The Pianist stops being the Holocaust movie and becomes a Holocaust movie.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Polanski's view of life is like that of Greek tragedy, with the same cold comfort that tragedy implies; from the larger perspective which art gives us, we know even horrors eventually pass.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

The power of the arts to transcend cultural differences is presumably what moves the German to spare Szpilman, and, perhaps, is the key to Polanski's salvation as well.

USA Today Mike Clark

With this 2002 Cannes Film Festival best-picture winner, Polanski skips the quirky flourishes and simply brings history to life.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

To the extent that movies bear the residue of their filmmakers' autobiographies, I found The Pianist particularly compelling.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The closing scenes of the movie involve Szpilman's confrontation with a German captain named Wilm Hosenfeld -- Polanski's direction of this scene, his use of pause and nuance, is masterful.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Crafted without a whiff of melodrama, this motion picture takes a steady, unflinching look at the plight of Jews in Warsaw.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Nothing can detract from the film as a portrait of hell so shattering it's impossible to shake.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Polanski, wisely, doesn't interpret or explain. He seems to have decided that in the face of such meticulously planned horror, the best one can do is get the details right.

Time Richard Schickel

A raw, unblinking film. It teaches that in dire circumstances our only obligation is to our own survival; all else -- culture, ideology, even love -- is a dispensable luxury.

Film Threat Darrin Keene

Does the world need another Holocaust film? When the director is Roman Polanski, the answer is an unequivocal “yes."

TV Guide Ken Fox

Polanski's film is an unqualified success both dramatically and artistically.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

To name only one of its predecessors -- for me, the towering one -- doesn't "Schindler's List" do everything that Polanski achieves and more?

New York Post V.A. Musetto

The Pianist recalls "Schindler's List," even down to its weakness: Just as Spielberg's film turned sentimental in its final half hour, Polanski's work, too, has a schmaltz coda. But that doesn't make The Pianist any less effective.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Has a sense of emotional urgency and deep-dwelling grief.

The New Yorker David Denby

The movie is about preservation and restoration and the power of art. But with what gain in knowledge? It's as if Szpilman had no soul, and no will, apart from an endless desire to tickle the keys. [13 January 2003, p. 90]

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Suffers from over-explanation. The movie maintains tremendous momentum through the Szpilman family's deportation. The second half is another story.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Through Brody's remarkably controlled, self-effacing performance, Polanski succeeds in making his hero an invisible man, but the sights he conjures are surprisingly artless and ordinary, familiar from a dozen other Holocaust dramas. Among the casualties in The Pianist is a great director's imagination.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Offers nothing new. It's actually one of Polanski's more conventional films and, ultimately, it's hard to recommend it with a clear conscience.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Astonishing visually and problematic dramatically.

Film Threat Phil Hall

At the risk of being called an anti-Semite, I would like to propose a moratorium on Holocaust movies -- While it would be crass to discount the importance of the subject, at the same time one has to admit there is some degree of excess going on here.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Surprisingly lacks a feeling of personal urgency and insight that would have made it a distinctive, even unique contribution to the considerable number of films that deal with the war in general and Holocaust in particular.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.6 (out of 10) based on 88 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Hui W. gave it a9:
The Pianist, a movie depicting the holocaust of Nazi like Schindler's List, arouse me a question that is why the western people could not pay more attention to Nanjiang Massacre. Even some of them never heard the history. Only during WW II from Dec.,1938 to Jun.,1939, more than 300,000 people was killed by Japanese army in their own country. I suppose maybe this history can be good materials for a historic movie.

Felix Q. gave it a10:
It just does not get much better than this. This film does not make use of elaborate or groundbraking camera techniques, doesn't over-play it's coloring or even it's wonderful sets- Roman allowed the story to speak greatly for itself. In simplicity, this film achieved more than Space Odyssey did with all it's grandeur, in my opinion. My mother, a professional musician, asked why it was called 'The Pianist', as there wasn't much applicable piano playing in the movie- but the title is about so much more than that. To me, it basically hands you the character on a silver platter- music is all he is, and is such an underlying force in his survival. The scene where the officer tells him to play once he's been found in the house, I could feel that passion of returning to his own little world. Music creates that head space for him and he becomes unaware of the officer, just being able to get rid of so much pent-up emotion that it makes me cry every time I see it. Adrien Brody is beyond belief, keeping his performance subtle and relying on the strength of the character and the force of the story to bring this one to life. Like I said, this movie never resorts to visual over-stimulation (although that has it's place) but still manages to give you a photographic piece of art to accompany the majesty of the film itself. One of the few in my DVD collection.

Dave C. gave it a4:
Can't go wrong with Adrien Brody, whose performance is, at once, intense and sympathetic, yet the character he is playing is little more than a void in the film, where we should in fact be thinking of him as the protagonist. Many sections of the film are risible where the ought to be taken seriously and at other times, I wasn't even convinced. The piano playing sequences are pretentious and obvious and the rest of the film feels like a missed opportunity. Why doesn't it tackle issues like the prejudices of slavic poles towards the jews. I never got the sense of what it might have felt like to be jew. Polanski has evidently been more pre-occupied with making a crowd-pleasing thrill ride. What a waste.

Richard gave it a10:
What is it with some viewers? Are they babies who have to be spoon fed every emotion? Polanski doesn't try to hit you over the head and instead just lets the story slowly build. Many of the images in this film are unbelievable and leave you filled with horror. At the end of the film when Brody is back in the radio studio playing the piano (where the film began) we understand EXACTLY what he is feeling when he looks at his friend who has walked into the sound room. I guess some people need to be hit with a baseball bat in order to feel anything. The low votes for this film are just a reflection of our dumbed down and numbed culture.

stephen c. gave it a2:
This film didn't take an angle to the events of the Holocaust, unless you count the fact that the lead could play a bit of piano. It showed the horror of the time but in a tasteless manner and really brought nothing new to the subject. Adrian Brody put on a sad face for the movie and won an oscar. An awful film.

David M. gave it a2:
The film is terribly contrived and appears to be sewn together from pieces of other Holocaust films, taking their drama, their imagery, their violence and their beauty, but leaving behind the reasons why we should care about these things. It's the type of film a Holocaust film enthusist would make, not a historian or a true film maker. I left this film feeling cheated that I never developed an understanding of any of the characters or any attachment to what was happening to them.

Gabor A. gave it a5:
Make another movie about the Holocaust. Fine. But have some original element. I cant imagine a more trypical screenplay that could be written given the task to write a script about the Holocaust.

Pianist, The Focus Features

Pianist, The
Focus Features