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Spain, United States · 2013
Rated R · 1h 30m
Director Eugenio Mira
Starring Elijah Wood, John Cusack, Tamsin Egerton, Allen Leech
Genre Mystery, Thriller
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Years after a catastrophic performance, Tom Selznick, a talented pianist, decides to perform again in Chicago. But when he sits down to play, Tom finds a message written on the score: “Play one wrong note and you die.” In the sights of an anonymous sniper, Tom must play the most difficult piece of his life.
Wood’s energetic, tightly wound performance carries the movie; his ability to juggle all the different information coming at him — keeping time on the piano while speaking and hitting his cues — is admirable and probably exhausting.
Eugenio Mira thrills in watching his main character attempt to worm his way out of a most unusual hostage situation, synching his indulgences of style to the pianist's wily physical maneuvering.
This is hardly a symphony of terror, but it’s still a solidly composed exercise in suspense.
Austin Chronicle by Marc Savlov
That it all ends on a somewhat flat, false note is less a failure of the filmmakers than it is a testament to a certain amount of overzealousness in the screenplay – which, of course, echoes the nail-gnawing tension unfolding onscreen. Bravo!
To its credit and sometimes detriment, Grand Piano keeps a frothing-at-the-mouth level of insane melodrama going for 75 minutes, aided by Wood’s sweaty, terrified performance, a screenplay rich in ridiculous contrivances, and a swooping camera that never stands still.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service by Roger Moore
A nail-biting thriller in the classic Hitchcock style.
While absolutely nothing in Grand Piano makes the least bit of sense, it is admittedly gorgeous to look at and listen to. Give Mira a decent script, and he might be a director to be reckoned with.
Village Voice by Stephanie Zacharek
Making this kind of thriller has all but become a lost art, yet Mira clearly believes that high style is worth bothering with.
The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Dalton
The young Spanish director Eugenio Mira and his American screenwriter Damien Chazelle have fun paying homage to the pulpy potboilers of yesteryear.
The Playlist by Todd Gilchrist
An expertly timed, painstakingly assembled and endlessly engaging game of cat and mouse, Grand Piano succeeds as a whole for the same reasons that Selznick does—namely, because Mira brings all of its elements to work together in concert, and then executes them like a virtuoso.
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