We’re getting the band back together! Cop cars piled up in Chicago? James Brown in the pulpit? Rocket launchers and Wrigley Field? Well, no. We’re getting the operatic band back together. In an English old folks home. With walkers and that chair thing you ride up and down staircases. Replace the dark suits and dark jackets with rocking chairs and medical gowns and, well, no, you still would never mistake the one for the other.
Once back in high school, a touring avant-garde dance troupe visited. They were, perhaps, a little less polished than they ought to have been. During a particularly out-of-sync sequence, my buddy turned to me and said, “isn’t it great how they each have their own routines?” That’s how Quartet opens. Set in a home for retired divas, Quartet begins with chaotic rehearsal for an upcoming concert. The biggest difference between this old folks home and others is that here the residents export the half-assed show rather than import it. Director Dustin Hoffman started with Cedric Livingston (Michael Gambon) yelling at a distinctly disorganized group. Far as I could tell, each had his own routine. I couldn’t actually tell if this were deliberate directorial chaos. I’ll give 
Dustin benefit of the doubt, in which case the scene is a mess on purpose. All the same, I wasn’t exactly giddy for what follows.
Quartet is a light, airy film. That’s a pleasant way of saying Dustin Hoffman made a film equally as hard hitting as anything in the Pauly Shore oeuvre. Bunch o’ talented fogie has-beens sit around swapping war stories while waiting for 1) death or 2) and encore. Does death take curtain calls? Aged prima donna Jean Horton (Maggie Smith) shows up to hear The Who or something which throws Reginald Paget (Tom Courtenay) into a tizzy because “Reggie” hasn’t been taken seriously as a name since the 1977 World Series. Er, no, that’s not it. Oh, now, where did I place that reason? It’s around here somewhere … just hold tight. Yes, here it is – because Jean broke Reg’s heart somewhere around the same time Veronica first did the same in Archie comics.
The quartet is rounded out by Pauline Collins, who reminds us that nothing is funnier or quite as pathetic as the rhyme of an ancient moroner and Billy Connolly, who reminds us that if Bob Hope were alive today, we’d still find his dirty old man persona tiresome. It’s important to remember these folks were all respectable once, either in person or in character. With the sniping and “young at heart” humor, Quartet comes off more like Glee for the Alzheimer’s crowd.
♪Well I guess it would be nice
If I could have your body
I know not everybody
Has mobility, woo!
But I’ve got to think twice
Before I give my heart a strain
And I know all the pills for pain
Because I take them, too
Oh but I
Need some time off from that exertion
Time to pick my heart off the (O.R.) floor
Before my eurhythmia
Becomes an arrest
Well it takes a rich man baby
When you’re at the new parts store
‘Cause I gotta make pace…
I gotta make pa-ace
I gotta make pace pa-pace ma-make
I gotta new pace-ma-make-ma-mer♫
Rated PG-13, 98 Minutes
D: Dustin Hoffman
W: Ronald Harwood
Genre: Nursing home Blues Brothers
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Do you store pills in days-of-the-week containers?
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: X-Games participants
♪Parody inspired by “Faith”
