Grand Piano is the best Brian De Palma work in this millennium. It just happens to be directed by Spain’s Eugenio Mira.
Virtuoso pianist Tom Selznick (Elijah Wood, 2012’s Maniac remake) has just begun tinkling the ivories at a classical concert when he notices a threatening note scrawled on his sheet music: Do what he’s told, or die. Because the message is written in red capital letters, Tom pays attention. Well, that, and because whoever left it has Tom’s fashion-model wife (Kerry Bishé, Red State) in his gun sights.
The culprit is Clem (John Cusack, The Raven), mostly heard and not seen. He communicates via earpiece, barking do-or-die orders at Tom throughout the event, including a demand to perform an über-difficult piece on which the pianist very publicly choked a few years prior. Mira gets Tom off the bench as the concert proceeds, which is ludicrous, yet Grand Piano embraces and thrives upon just that. As preposterous as it is pleasurable, the high-concept howler achieves an operatic quality of disbelief — all the better to ape De Palma’s swipes, split screens and stabbings. For fans of impossible suspense, it hits just the right note. —Rod Lott