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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Piano, The
Miramax Films


7.1

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

based on 34 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

Internet Movie Database

MPAA RATING: R

Starring Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin

A seemingly mute woman (Hunter) is sent to New Zealand together with her daughter and her beloved piano, for an arranged marriage.

GENRE(S):	Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Jane Campion
DIRECTED BY:	Jane Campion
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: January 25, 2001 Video: May 20, 1994 Theatrical: November 1, 1993
RUNNING TIME:	121 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Australia / France / New Zealand

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

USA Today Mike Clark

Campion's script is very well received, but the film finally makes it on cinematics: bleakly beautiful photography, haunting score, and good acting. [12 Nov 1993]

100

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Great art is both immediately accessible and eternally elusive, having at its centre a powerful simplicity that speaks to anyone who cares to listen, that rewards every interpretation while embracing none. The Piano is great art.

100

Washington Post Desson Thomson

The Piano plays itself with such contrapuntal richness, it resonates in you forever.

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It is one of those rare movies that is not just about a story, or some characters, but about a whole universe of feeling.

100

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

In Jan Campion's The Piano, the emotions are deep, fierce, primordial. Sexuality overwhelms the film's characters like ocean waves blasting against a cliffside. [19 Nov 1993]

100

The New York Times Vincent Canby

Prepare yourself for something very special...Here's a severely beautiful, mysterious movie that, as if by magic, liberates the romantic imagination. [16 Oct 1993]

100

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

By the end, Campion views all her characters with a compassion bordering on grace, a humanity-like her heroine's-as dark, quiet, and enveloping as the ocean.

100

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

Magical and haunting, The Piano has the power and delicate mystery of a gothic fairy tale. [19 Nov 1993]

100

Washington Post Hal Hinson

The Piano is dark, sublime music, and after it's over, you won't be able to get it out of your head.

100

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

The story worms further into the guts of Victorian experience than most historical dramas, because it aims at the most neglected aspect of that age, and the most alarmingly modern: its surrealism. [29 Nov 1993, p.148]

100

Wall Street Journal Julie Salamon

With its breathtaking visual style and careful attention to sound and movement, the movie provokes contemplation about the ways people communicate – through words, through music, through sex, and, most significantly, through touch. [14 Dec 1993, p.A14(E)]

Time Richard Corliss

Campion has spun a fable as potently romantic as a Bronte tale. But The Piano is also deeply cinematic. [22 Nov 1993]

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

It takes exceptional acting to enable a story like this to take hold, and Campion has gotten it here. [19 Nov 1993]

Variety David Stratton

The Piano confirms Campion as a major talent, an uncompromising filmmaker with a very personal and specific vision.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

The wonder of The Piano is that such an outwardly simple story could emerge into such a complex swirl of lingering memories.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

"Sweetie" and "An Angel at My Table" have taught us to expect startling as well as beautiful things from Jane Campion, and this assured and provocative third feature offers yet another lush parable--albeit a bit more calculated and commercially minded--about the perils and paradoxes of female self-expression.

TV Guide Staff (Not Credited)

Campion's eye is extraordinary. She searches out the detail that makes the image, and the image that tells the story more eloquently than words ever could.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Although the action tends to become melodramatic and even overwrought at times, the imaginative power of Campion's images and emotional insights (especially with regard to the heroin) rarely allow the story to seem artificial or exaggerated. [12 Nov 1993]

ReelViews James Berardinelli

A solid motion picture with a universal message and occasional splashes of genius, but it is remarkable only as Holly Hunter's performance is concerned.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

An overwrought, hollowly symbolic glob of glutinous nonsense... I haven't seen a sillier film about a woman and a piano since John Huston's "The Unforgiven" (1960), a Western in which Lillian Gish had her piano carried out into the front yard so she could play Mozart to pacify attacking Indians. [13 Dec 1993]

The average user rating for this movie is 7.1 (out of 10) based on 34 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Lucia gave it a10:
A lush film with excruciating attention to photography including shadows. Attention is drawn to the sounds and visuals like some amazing artist has waved a wand and you can't get your eyes off the trail of light left in the air. You care about all the characters. I do wish a little more attention had been paid to the aboriginal tribe that co-habited the area - there was a mystique about them as well as everything and everyone else. The film is in a word, beautiful.

Dr Rhythm gave it a1:
Possibly the worst film I have ever seen and certainly the closest I have ever come to walking out of a cinema. It's appalling junk that has attracted an extraordinary amount of what I call "Emperor's New Clothes" reviewing. Given it a 1 because it's well shot but otherwise it gets a fat zero - horrible!

antoñete gave it a10:
Perfect movie!!!! I love this!!!!! The music, the cinematography, Holly, Anna Paquin... The script itself, the poetic images... I can't forget this movie.

sohyun w. gave it a4:
If you play piano, put this one on the bottom of your list to watch. However, it is nice to watch on a rainy day, but don't go out of your way. Some parts were quite cheezy and I didn't like the weird, erotic scenes. I would rather see Amadeus for the 43rd time or watch my sisters play piano gracefully without words. Acting by Anna is superb. The rest of the cast... too boring and familiar.

neezy k. gave it a10:
Perfect!

Ryan B. gave it a9:
An amazing piece supported with an amazinbg acting team. Anna Paquin, wow! Holly Hunter, perfect! Sam Neil, intense. A well told story show some serious and emotional issuse in a time of uncertainty in early New Zealand. Michael Nymans score truly became Ada's voice.

Amber H. gave it a1:
I missed the finger chop bit, so i dont understand it, and it took forever to tell the story.

Piano, The Miramax Films

Piano, The
Miramax Films