Movie Review: Amadeus

Tania Says:
I can’t believe I have never seen this movie. I love this movie! Seriously, I am all of a sudden obsessed with this movie. How could I have never seen it?

For those of you who are weird like me and missed this movie for 20 years – go rent it and watch it and make your life a little better by having watched it. It is about the supposed rivalry between Mozart and Salieri ( also a composer) – well really, the rivalry is all on Salieri’s side but he spends the whole film being jealous of and trying to sabotage Mozart. F Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce play Salieri and Mozart respectively and both of them are perfectly brilliant. What happened to both of them? And what happened to the chick who plays Mozart’s wife? She is awesome and I looked her up on IMDB and now she is guesting on Grounded for Life. Anyway – back to the stars – Tom Hulce plays Mozart as a spoiled brat, mildly naïve kind of kid who knows he is brilliant. The way he plays this is both annoying and completely endearing. You can’t help to feel for him when things don’t go his way. I read somewhere that Mozart’s laugh was described at different times as “an infectious giggle” and like “nails on a chalkboard”. I wonder how an actor can take those descriptions and come up with something that works but Tom Hulce comes up with the perfect laugh – at first you want to giggle along, then you start to kind of chuckle at it, then you want to kill him. It goes beyond his laugh though – he just does a masterful job.

F Murray Abraham does as well. He also makes you feel sympathy for him because he is always in Mozart’s shadow and then as he becomes more and more jealous he gets more and more evil and you stop feeling sorry for him but you still feel something for him. It is hard to explain. You feel for him because he is so troubled and instead of working on his own craft he spends his time trying to ruin Mozarts.

I am gushing in the most incoherent way but that is how much I love this movie.

It is also just plain beautiful to look at. Even though it was filmed in the 80s and film quality itself has come a long way since then, the scenery and costumes and sets are all stunning and seem perfectly period. The Opera sequences are great fun as well. I know I am way late to the party on this one and that makes me sad but perhaps I can inspire one person who is as late as me to give this movie a try.

Josh Says:
I suck at writing good reviews. I mean, if you haven't seen this movie, see it. If you don't, you're missing out.

You're missing out on one of the greatest performances in cinema by F. Murray Abraham as Salieri.

You're missing out on a wonderfully unorthodox, almost over the top performance by Tom Sulce.

You're missing out on the visually stunning costumes, architecture and scenery.

You're missing out on the best biographical film piece ever made (is that title selling it short though?)

Most importantly, you're missing out on the incredible hilarity of picturing Mark Hammill in the role that he lobbied heavily for, Mozart.