The beginnings of the great affair between pants-wearing, cigar-smoking George Sand (pseud.) and pasty-faced, consumptively coughing Frédéric Chopin (she falls in love with the music before she first catches sight of the man -- truly a Romantic notion). The largest chunk of the action is set at a gathering of "geniuses" at a country estate: Liszt, Delacroix, Musset, besides the two future lovers. Not much is accomplished there, but the battle is engaged. Sarah Kernochan's screenplay and James Lapine's direction are breezily irreverent (and at times even eruptively funny) while remaining true to the "legends" of these figures. All are well served by their players -- Hugh Grant as Chopin, Julian Sands as Liszt -- though Judy Davis's burning Sand tends to dominate, as is only appropriate. (All, however, are not well served by the anemic cinematography.) Music isn't allowed to run roughshod over the movie, but it, along with the other arts, is accorded its proper place in the Romantic scheme of things as a vital force and a devastating weapon. Wittiest use: when the beleaguered Chopin grants Sand a minute of his time, he busies his fingers with the "Minute Waltz" while the woman pleads her case. Bernadette Peters, Mandy Patinkin. (1991) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.