Hilary and Jackie (1998)

I have before me a 1965 vinyl LP record with a beautiful portrait of the then twenty-year-old Jacqueline du Pré and her cello. On it she plays the Elgar and Delius Cello Concertos, classics in her repertoire which have never been bettered. Indeed, years later, the "gran maestro" Mstislav Rostropovich on being asked why was it that he had never made a recording of the Elgar Concerto, said that a young English woman had already made the definitive version to which he had nothing to add. I also have various remastered CD recordings - with or without her then husband, Daniel Barenboim as accompanying pianist or orchestra conductor, ranging from Paradis and Saint-Saëns to Fauré, Franck and Dvorák, as well as Sir Edward Elgar's beautiful "Enigma Variations".

Jacqueline du Pré was born just a few months before me and we thus celebrate 60 years on this iniquitous planet. Which is the best that can be said about the film "Hilary and Jackie" - iniquitous, "gross", vulgar............ When I learned she had got multiple sclerosis and had stopped playing her cello, I cried for a week; and when she finally died, another week. She shall be remembered for her exquisite music, not for the trashy version of a film like this one.

I am sorry, but I just could not bear seeing the film to the end. It had nothing to do with the Jacqueline du Pré whom I loved as a sensitive, intelligent, brilliant musician. Everything which this film lacks.

As the Spanish actor Paco Rabal once said: No god could be so cruel.

This film is cruel.

Even today, I show the LP recording with the beautiful portrait to my teenage students in an endeavour (mostly wasted) to persuade them to stop picking their noses.

I give this film a three out of ten - ONLY because there are fragments of her own music in it; as for the rest of the film - ZERO.

Fmovies: "Hilary and Jackie" is a film technically beautiful, with magnificent cinematography and music score and top-notch performances, highlighting the lead actresses Emily Watson and Rachel Griffiths. However the screenplay telling the personal life of Jacqueline du Pré from the perpectives of each sister does not work well. Jacqueline du Pré is depicted as a selfish and spoiled woman and it is impossible to the viewer to care to the character shown in the film. Consequently the film has no feelings despite the performance of Emily Watson and looks like a tragic soap-opera. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Hilary and Jackie"

"Hilary and Jackie" tells of two sisters who share a love of classical music and each other but take contrasting paths through adult life. A much lauded film worthy of its critical acclaim, "H&J" does have a peculiar twice-told tale approach to its presentation which tends to make it interesting but so complex as to dilute its effectiveness. Nonetheless, this British film with a typically "stiff upper lip" approach to its sentimentality, is well shot, scripted, and acted. A good watch which will be a little "over the top" for many.

Hilary and Jackie fmovies. As a child Hilary was the talented musician on the flute and the younger Jacqueline was encouraged to keep up if she wanted to accompany her sister on trips to musical events. So Jackie practiced hard on her cello to do so, gradually becoming better than her sister. As adults Hilary is now very much in the shadow of her brilliant sister Jackie, who is booked solid for shows. However where Hilary finds happiness and support from her partner and husband Kiffer, Jackie grows increasingly isolated from others. The pair's relationship drifts apart but comes together again to produce one traumatic moment in their relationship.

I'm sure it has been done many times but I still found this film's structure to be pretty clever. The central traumatic act in the narrative occurs halfway through the film; up until then we follow things from Hilary's point of view and then in the second half we jump backwards and work up to it again (and beyond) from Jacqueline's (more or less). The effect is that the first half of the film is engaging as it develops along lines we don't know while the second film is engaging as it underpins the reasons for Jacqueline's character and where she goes from there. I put of watching the film because I had no knowledge of the characters and no real interest in their music, however now that I have watched it I am glad I did as it is well made and interesting. It is very character driven and evenly paced, which will annoy some viewers but for me it worked really well and produced a story that didn't require you to know the people involved because you felt you did by the end.

Watson leads the cast really well, bringing out the innocent of her character as easily as she does the spite within Jackie. Griffiths yet again shows her talent in taking on yet another accent and strange character and pulling it off. They work well together although their best scenes are early on. Support is good from Frain, Morrissey, Dance, Imrie and others but the film is lead well by the main two actresses who work well with the material given them.

Overall this is a well paced film that will annoy some but is heavy in quality. The character development in the script is strong and the cast respond well to it. Tucker controls it all well with a good eye for a scene and some imaginative visual touches and brings out a film that is well-structured and engaging even if it won't be to everyone's tastes.

Hilary and Jackie is a film that can be appreciated on many levels. The performances of Ms. Griffith and Ms. Watson as the title characters were superb, but so were the actors that played the parents and husbands, and the two young actresses playing them as girls were terrific. All the people in the film were interesting. The film gives insight into the life of a musical genius with its rewards and triumphs as well as conflicts and sacrifices. There is also a psychological aspect at the heart of this film. From the beginning the two sisters have a bond, almost a symbiotic relationship, yet there is also intense competition. To make the presentation even more interesting the relationship is presented in two "acts", the first told from Hilary's perspective and the second from Jackie's. Whose is more real? Does it make a difference? The final scenes as MS is taking its toll on Jackie are gripping. Both actresses were deserving of their nominations. This was great entertainment! Three and half stars!!!

Jacqueline du Pre is remembered as the beautiful, genius cellist who tragically died of multiple sclerosis at a young age. But this film, though a biopic, avoids the easy conventions of the tear-jerker. Instead, it portrays a talented but capricious young woman who found her rise to fame as difficult to handle, in some ways, as her subsequent decline. Three things lift it out of the ordinary: fine acting from the entire cast; a concerted attempt, in the construction of both plot and soundtrack, to genuinely convey the importance of music in her life; and an intelligent screenplay that uses the viewpoint of her sister Hilary, along with that of Jackie herself, to show her behaviour in two different lights. The veracity of the events has been disputed; but this is a complex, and ultimately moving, film.