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Copying Beethoven
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer


7.5

based on 20 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 16 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for some sexual elements

Starring Diane Kruger, Ed Harris, Ralph Riach, Matthew Goode, Joe Anderson, Bill Stewart, and Phyllida Law

In this romantic period piece set in Vienna, a young music student and aspiring composer (Kruger) accepts a job as a copyist for Ludwig von Beethoven (Harris) as he works to complete his latest symphony.

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Stephen J. Rivele Christopher Wilkinson
DIRECTED BY:	Agnieszka Holland
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: April 3, 2007 Theatrical: November 10, 2006
RUNNING TIME:	104 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA / Germany

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...

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Copying Beethoven has an ace up its sleeve: the wonder and drama of the Ninth Symphony itself (heard here in Bernard Haitink's tremendous 1996 recording with the Royal Concertgebouw).

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Topped with that messy salt-and-pepper wig that frames and obscures his scowling, searching face, [Harris] invests Beethoven with a violent turbulence that sometimes floods the room but mostly stays coiled inside, where it seethes.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

The movie is completely beguiling, and it delivers joy, the beautiful spark of the gods.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Has one knockout sequence: the deaf maestro conducting his Ninth Symphony as Anna coaches from the wings. It goes on for what seems a whole reel, but it's so sublime it seems too short and, by itself, could stand as one of the greatest classic music videos ever.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Copying Beethoven, at its best, is a sort of grand cinema opera of the composer's life and music.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Agnieszka Holland (Europa Europa, The Secret Garden) directs with obvious feeling rather than cynicism, and I was swept away by it despite the story's anachronisms.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

There are two reasons to see - and hear - Agnieszka Holland's Copying Beethoven. One is Ed Harris' performance as the nearly deaf and totally egocentric Ludwig van; the other is a cherry-picked 10-minute chunk of the composer's soaring Ninth Symphony.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Like an old college wrestler, Harris saunters through this toasty little piece of biographical fiction in love with the part's fixins'.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

This is one of those middle-of-the-road art pictures that will impress some music lovers and attract a small audience, but won't really excite anyone. Copying Beethoven does not do for its title composer what Amadeus did for Mozart, and that's a shame.

Village Voice Luke Y. Thompson

Screenwriters Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson, best known for the two ponderous biopics "Ali" and "Nixon," deliver a film awkwardly composed.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Shot by Ashley Rowe to look like a cross between a Vermeer retrospective and a music video, Copying Beethoven is silly and misguided, if reasonably entertaining for its charming lack of self-awareness, its weakness for lines like "Loneliness is my religion!" and its transcendently beautiful music.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

We are left finally with a double response: it is hard to know exactly why the film was made, what its emotional and thematic point is, yet we are glad it happened because of Harris's performance.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Harris' impressive channeling of Ludwig is diluted by the decision of screenwriters Stephen Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson to put the copyist front and center, possibly to distinguish their feature from "Immortal Beloved."

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

More music and less melodrama would serve audiences better.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

The picture never successfully comes off the written page.

Variety Leslie Felperin

Helmer Agnieszka Holland's Copying Beethoven joins 1994's "Immortal Beloved" in the ranks of mediocre dramatic interpretations of Beethoven's biography.

LA Weekly James C. Taylor

One is left yearning for the overheated melodrama of Bernard Rose's 1994 Beethoven biopic, "Immortal Beloved," which was trashy, but fun.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Aspires to the sublime, but it stalls at the merely ridiculous.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Harris can be a brilliant actor, and there are flashes of that here. But he's done in by a script that lacks any subtlety.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Holland's empurpled bio-fantasy is hooey with an anachronistic feminist slant from start to finish.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.5 (out of 10) based on 16 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Paul W. gave it a1:
Firmly set in the 21st century, with no period feel whatsoever. Beethoven was TOTALLY deaf for the last 15 years of his life, yet here he hears when it suits the script writers. Typical well-meaning American schmalz.

Michael E gave it an8:
Captures the essence of Beethoven along with a stirring performance of his ninth symphony.

William w. gave it a9:
Excellent story. Performance of the ninth was magnificent.

John B. gave it a9:
Although the storyline is not too strong, the film captures brilliantly the agony and the ecstasy of Beethoven's struggle to produce his masterwork and the (edited) performance of the 9th is one of the most moving experiences of my more than 50 years of being a movie fan!

Eduardo P. gave it a10:
Great movie, wonderful argument.

Luis C. gave it a1:
The film is a farse. The most unforgivable mistake is presenting an apparently deaf Beethoven that sometimes hears everything and some other times he invents the perfect excuse to blackmail Anna. Bad film.

Cathy C. gave it a9:
I couldn't disagree more with Nick B.'s assessment of Diane Kruger's acting. She approached her role with subtlety, not flatness. Yes, Harris portrays Beethoven as "over the top" and bombastic. He was that way in real life, an egotist. This film isn't about Beethoven, it's about how the times treated women, and shut them out of important pursuits. It's a feminist "what if" by a feminist director. It should be viewed for it's intent, not what we wish it were.

Copying Beethoven Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Copying Beethoven
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer