An historical Unsolved Mystery worthy of Robert Stack and his trenchcoat. Among the papers of the deceased Ludwig van Beethoven is found a document bequeathing his entire estate to somebody identified solely as his Immortal Beloved. Who was she? Writer and director Bernard Rose (The Paperhouse, Candyman), utilizing a Citizen Kane narrative structure of flashbacks from differing viewpoints, rounds up several suspects, but notably not one of the actual likelier ones, a singer called Amalie Sebold, nowhere to be found among the cast of characters. Rose does not pussyfoot as to his own preferred hypothesis, one that on the evidence makes no sense whatsoever. Well, maybe soap-opera sense, romance-novel sense. And maybe it makes a kind of sense of the histrionic and slightly hysterical pitch at which the whole business is conducted. The filmmaker's solution to the puzzle is one designed, above all else, to excuse and reduce the level of Beethoven's lunacy. But where's the fun in that? (See Paul Morrissey's surprisingly sedate Beethoven's Nephew for some, though still not enough, of that.) With Gary Oldman, Isabella Rossellini, Johanna Ter Steege, and Valeria Golino. (1994) — Duncan Shepherd
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