Impromptu

1991 "He's about to fall in love with the most scandalous woman of his time."
6.8| 1h47m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 12 April 1991 Released
Producted By: Les Films Ariane
Country: United Kingdom
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

In 1830s France, pianist/composer Frédéric Chopin is pursued romantically by the determined, individualistic woman who uses the name George Sand.

Genre

Drama, Comedy, Music

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Director

James Lapine

Production Companies

Les Films Ariane

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Impromptu Audience Reviews

Karry Best movie of this year hands down!
TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
Raj Doctor I saw this movie IMPROMPTUIt was based on George Sand (Judy Davis) - a pseudo name of a novelist woman named Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin who did everything to seek LOVE of a French pianist and composer Frederic Chopin (Hugh Grant).More importantly than the movie the understanding and portrayal of the character of George Sand was intriguing to say the least.She was a tom-boy. She always wore man's clothes. She was outspoken. and smoke continuously - mostly thick cigars. She was determined, individualistic and had her own mind and sense of right/ wrong and decisions. She belonged to somewhat aristocratic lineage. She had her own ways among the elites and rich. Her novels that she wrote in plenty helped her to her repute. She was tiny and dark in stature. Not very physically or facially attractive, but had her own charisma that charmed people. She was a strong lady, and bull-dozed her way with her opinions amongst men. She got married at the age of 16 years with a man much older than her, - got two kids by 18 years and fought a long divorce battle for custody of her children which she won - when such a thing was unimaginable. We are talking of 1804 (210 years back). She called herself - A ROMANTIC REBELLION. She over powered her prey (man) with passionate LOVE. She loved having sex and had multiple affairs with men. A man she put her eyes on - she was determined to lay him down and move on. This time was a pianist of soul-wrenching music composer Frederic Chopin. Among all men - her affair and liaison with Frederic was most passionate and that is why much has been written about it and even songs, lyrics, poems, plays and movies made on them.Frederic Chopin was a shy, timid, feminine person, and his first meeting with George Sand was not at all cordial. Frederic looked down on George condemning her for what she stood for and looked "What an unattractive woman she is. Is she really a woman?" were his exact comments to one of his friend. But George Sand did all things possible to seek Frederic - even wearing women's attire - just to show her feminine side to catch Frederic's attention, and she did. Frederic was head over heels in deep LOVE with her. So much so that he was ready to show his valor to one of George's former LOVER for a gun-fight.Their first "sort-off" trip together with her two children was captured in her autobiographical novel "Un hiver à Majorque" . This is where the movie ends Thanks to Director James Lapine for making the movie and that will keep the character immortal. Judy Davis tries to put some effort in playing the rolOne of the tender scenes in the movie is when Frederic confesses to George about his inability to bring himself to have sex with George, and the most outspoken and passionate George turns into a compassionate LOVER and says to Frederic."It does not matter. It is not necessary to have SEX. I LOVE YOU so much dear. I just want to be with you, near YOU. Spend rest of my life besides YOU. Like that can't we live happily ever after? It is not SEX I seek in YOU, I seek your LOVE. Tell me "Yes"....." Pleased and shy Frederic says "YES" George replies "At last you said YES to my LOVE"The movie apart from this wonderful central character is otherwise okay. Nothing much to write about - though interesting to discover a wonderful feminist icon - the first of its type. - George Sand.Story beyond the movie:As accounts narrate - while their first trip as a couple to the island of Majorque George and Federic had difficulty finding a place to stay at the island, because she was popular and not-so-popular with her ways - traveling with her kids and a men with whom she was not married - was considered a big NO NO - for locals to provide them with a decent accommodation. Frederic had weak constitution and suffered from cough and pneumonia that lead to his death due to tuberculosis. Those last few years George Sands left everything for him and served him as much as she could till the final moments of his death. After Frederic's death - George Sands lived for another 27 years and she had just one more affair - but not as passionate as with Frederic.
federovsky It's pleasing to reflect that Chopin and Liszt - the two greatest pianist-composers of all time - were actually good friends rather than petulant enemies as might be expected, and any film about either of them has a bit of a warm glow from that. This film is all about temperament, but mainly that of George Sand rather than the keyboard colossi. To the film's credit they take lesser roles among the other slightly foolish men of Sand's entourage, which includes Delacroix and De Musset.Judy Davis is fabulous as Sand, strident, brittle but womanly. The film is fairly explicit about the gender-bending. "Chopin is not a man, but a woman" Sand's friend the Duchess (Bernadette Peters) tells her, "He has to be wooed". She turns up next day with flowers. It's fun, gossipy and theatrical and hard not to like. Even the performances that don't really work fail in a good-natured way: Hugh Grant as the sickly Chopin does diffidence better than he does intensity, and Julian Sands looks the part of Liszt far better than he speaks it.There's lashings of ironic humour on the absurdity of high art being subservient to base emotion, and the idea that genius has a foot in two worlds, one of them less noble, was well worth playing around with.
nycritic If it weren't for Judy Davis' overpowering presence (which might sound redundant since that is what she is known for), IMPROMPTU would be an extended piece of boredom modulated by the occasional incursion into repartee, blended with the revolving door of (then) rising and established British actors, peppered with an occasional American thrown in for sport. What little plot there actually is, revolves around Aurora Dupin, a.k.a. Georges Sand -- arguably the first feminist the world and literature ever had -- and how her life becomes a sitcom of sorts where men and women flutter in and out, some of them -- Franz Lizst (Julian Sands) and Frederic Chopin (Hugh Grant) -- becoming lovers, and others, like Felicien Mallefille (one of her former beaus, played by Georges Corraface) turning mildly psycho and trying to prove something by challenging the effeminate Chopin into a duel which never officially establishes itself since Chopin faints dead away and she has to shoot Mallefille herself. Some characters are written rather shabbily -- most notably Marie d'Agoult played by a shrill Bernadette Peters -- who switches personalities quicker than she would do outfits and seems to act on whims that have to do more with her love/hate acquaintance with Sand than actual preoccupation with anyone else. Other than that, with Emma Thompson in a small part, IMPROMPTU lives up to its ad hoc story and execution and is a solid piece of entertainment.
Putzberger As someone who has never been especially fond of classical music or French literature (bite me, Proust), I wasn't exactly drooling when my roommate cajoled me into watching an art film about the romance between Frederic Chopin and George Sand. I wound up laughing my derriere off. First off, ignore the Parisian drag, this is a British sex farce -- witness the cast (Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Judy Davis) and the screwball plot (an aggressive woman who enjoys wearing men's clothes tries to win the heart of a shy, mild-mannered man). Big kudos to director Lapine and screenwriter Sarah Kernochen for treating the famous figures they depict as flesh-and-blood characters, not icons to be revered or reviled. And special reverence must be accorded an absolutely outstanding cast -- Judy Davis is usually pretty damn brilliant, and she does it again here as George Sand. One forgets that Hugh Grant was actually a good actor before he started playing Hugh Grant in all his movies, and he makes Chopin an utterly charming wimp. But this is the movie that made me love Emma Thompson. Hers is a relatively minor role, as a flighty French noblewoman ("stupid, stupid rain!" she curses foolishly at the weather) whom the other characters alternately mock and seduce. But Thompson has the talent to make the Duchess D'Antan both hysterically clueless and touchingly vulnerable -- if your eyes remain dry as you watch the Duchess hang her head after viewing the play Sand writes specifically to insult her, your heart is made of stone. Even the normally annoying Bernadette Peters is pretty decent here. Watch it now.