Kvartetten

Murder most foul is one thing. Murder most fair is another. The veteran hambones starring in "Quartet" get away with murder most fair, through eye-bugging delight in a double-entendre in close-up (Billy Connolly); charmingly distracted line...

In this day and age when actors jump behind the camera at the drop of the hat it’s almost shocking to see that it took Dustin Hoffman 50 years to try his hand at directing (I don’t count the few days he spent on the film “Straight Time”...

The retired musicians at Britain's Beecham House may not have the cash or relatives to ensure they pass their last years at home. But they still have their wit, their love of rehearsal and fading vestiges of their talent.

Obviously someone like Keith Richards would never check into a retirement home for musicians. He's lived like a rock star, and he'll die like a rock star.

‘Quartet” isn’t a penetrating inquiry into aging. Who wants that? We all know the facts, so let’s not begrudge some fancy.

For Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut, Ronald Harwood adapts his own play about an English retirement home for esteemed musicians. The resulting quasi-farce gathers Billy Connolly, Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins and Maggie Smith in a cozy ensemble...

After working half a century as an actor, Dustin Hoffman finally makes his directorial debut with Quartet, and it’s immediately clear that his filmmaking aspirations haven’t been burning a hole in his belly all these years. Based on the 1999 play by...

“Quartet” is one of those movies that looks so effortless, it’s easy to forget just how much could have gone wrong.

Watching Quartet, the latest entry in Maggie Smith's late-career surge, one can't help but wonder what Smith's two best recent characters, Gosford Park's Countess of Trentham and Downton Abbey's Countess of Grantham, might think of this trite...

If you can accept the idea of a rest home for retired musicians, you won’t question whether their partners, presumably not all of whom are musical, would live out their golden years. You might also resist wondering why Dustin Hoffman, an actor...

Quartet is a lovely old lolloping Labrador of a film. It bounds over to you, eyes bright and tail wagging, and you smilingly allow it curl up on your feet, despite the faint smell of damp fur and digestive biscuits.

A frothy and often charming directorial effort from Hoffman, his first in a Hollywood career that's spanned five decades, that will keep Downton fans happy.

Now comes Quartet, a slightly more sedate effort on the same theme. No one negotiates the Udaipur traffic on a motorbike or lingers over a gin and tonic in the bar of a palace hotel, hoping to meet someone new, but everybody is having a pretty good time.

Hot on the heels of the success of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel comes Quartet, another Maggie Smith-led movie about the twilight years. Sure to draw in a more mature crowd, there’s plenty to enjoy for the young at heart though perhaps not so much for...

AT THE appropriately advanced age of 75 Dustin Hoffman makes his directorial debut with Quartet, a charming, beautifully acted character comedy that proves you’re never too old to say “never”.

If the point-blank treatment of old age and mortality in this year’s French arthouse hit ‘Amour’ makes you nervous, here’s the cuddly British version – with songs. ‘Quartet’ has been adapted by screenwriter Ronald Harwood (‘The Pianist’) from his own...

The respective ages of Quartet’s leads (72, 69, 75, 77…) reads like a game of geriatric bingo.