Director – Eugenio Mira, Screenplay – Damien Chazelle, Producers – Adrian Guerra & Rodrigo Cortes, Photography – Unax Mendia, Music – Victor Reyes, Visual Effects Supervisor – Alex Villegrasa, Special Effects – EFE X (Supervisors – Javier Jal & Raul Romanillos), Production Design – Javier Alvariño. Production Company – Nostromo Pictures/The Solution Entertainment Group/Atresmediacine/Telefonica Producciones/Antena 3 Television/Televisio de Catalunya, SA.
Cast
Elijah Wood (Tom Selznick), John Cusack (Clem), Kerry Bishé (Emma Selznick), Alex Winter (Assistant), Tamsin Egerton (Ashley), Don McManus (Norman Reisinger), Allen Leech (Wayne)
Plot
In Chicago, celebrated concert pianist Tom Selznick is about to give his first recital in five years. The concert is in tribute to his mentor, the late Patrick Goudreaux, with Patrick’s special grand piano even having been shipped in for the occasion. Tom is experiencing nerves in that he previously froze up on stage while trying to play Patrick’s famous unplayable piece La Cinquette. In attendance at the concert is Tom’s wife Emma, a famous movie actress. However, as soon as the concert begins, Tom finds an earpiece and notes have been left on his score for him by a mystery figure. The mystery figure is in the hall and says that he will kill Tom or Emma if Tom does not complete the unplayable concerto without getting a note wrong. At the same time as he begins playing up on stage in front of everybody, Tom desperately tries to get help without being detected by the killer.
Grand Piano was the third film for Spanish director Eugenio Mira who had previously made the horror film The Birthday (2004) and the thriller Agnosia (2010). Elsewhere Mira has worked as a composer with the scores for Spanish films such as Timecrimes (2007) and Veronica (2017). Grand Piano is produced by Rodrigo Cortes who had just had some success with the US-made Buried (2010) and subsequent went on to the likes of Red Lights (2012) and Down a Dark Hall (2018). The surprise name on the script is that of Damien Chazelle, shortly before his breakout to the Hollywood A-list as director/writer with films such as Whiplash (2014), La La Land (2014), First Man (2018) and the extraordinary Babylon (2022).
As soon as you sit down to watch and the premise of Grand Piano kicks in, you realise that it is a copy of Phone Booth (2002). Phone Booth had Colin Farrell trapped inside a phone box on a New York City street by a sniper, while this has Elijah Wood trapped on the stage seated at a piano in the middle of a concert recital by a sniper. In both cases, the snipers are played by big name actors who are present only by their voice, although in this case John Cusack does briefly turn up at the end.
Despite a potentially entirely static premise where Elijah Wood is trapped sitting at a piano in front of an audience and told not to move or deviate from playing, Grand Piano manages to be utterly gripping. (Unlike Phone Booth, which kept Colin Farrell trapped for the duration, the film does cheat and have Wood get up and walk away from the piano a couple of times in the midst of the performance). There is a gripping sequence where Elijah Wood manages to sneak out his cellphone unnoticed and send a text to Allen Leech who goes to investigate only to be caught by the killer’s surprise associate, followed by his date Tamsin Egerton when she goes to investigate and then hears Leech’s phone ringing upstairs.
Elijah Wood in concert at the piano
Grand Piano draws undeniable influence from the Giallo Film. The concert hall stage in distinctive red and black art deco designs reminds very much of the vivid colour schemes of a Mario Bava or a Dario Argento. The film is more plot driven than the classic giallo film was and there is more focus on suspense and tension rather than novelty deaths – there is one undeniably effective scene where we cut from Tamsin Egerton’s throat about to be slit to a bow being drawn across a cello, which more than effectively completes the move for us.
Grand Piano works well. The only point the film faltered for me was the ending. [PLOT SPOILERS] We get the revelation of why the set-up has been conducted – to have Elijah Wood play the unplayable piece – and this happens, but then the film peters out without delving into what is in the secret compartment or the killer’s purpose is in setting up the whole scheme. For such a big and elaborate set-up, the denouement of the film should far crucially have factored into the climax and not been allowed to drift off without the secret compartment even being opened and it revealed what is in there.
