Madame Sousatzka Reviews

A fiery, autocratic piano teacher, Madame Sousatzka (Shirley MacLaine) has spent the last 30 years living in a London boardinghouse when she meets Manek Sen (Navin Chowdhry), a gifted 15-year-old Indian pianist. She believes she can turn him into a brilliant musician, starting from scratch and molding him into a new whole. "I teach not only how to play the piano, but how to live," she claims. MADAME SOUSATZKA features a cast good enough to sidestep being sunk by the film's pedestrian script and direction. Five years after her Oscar-winning performance in TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, MacLaine attempts to deliver another tour de force here, and while she's often quite good, too often the showiness of her star turn sabotages the sentiment. Newcomer Chowdhry turns in a strong, believable performance as the musical prodigy on the verge of a major breakthrough. The movie's chief fault is its uninspired handling of the classic themes of change versus tradition, commerce versus art, and the general destruction of history and values. MADAME SOUSATZKA is not the great or important film that it tries to be; rather, it is a warm and touching human drama, made so by the often exceptional acting.