Reviews

What a waste of acting talent. Stanley, Tucci, and David Tennant are great actors, and they almost, almost make you believe the actions of their characters but the entire thing hinges on completely unbelievable actions by the vicar. And the weird plot device that Tucci is allowed to solve crimes from death row.

It's almost shocking that this script is from Steven Moffat, who wrote the very witty scripts for Sherlock Holmes. Lo, how the mighty have fallen.

If you're really bored give it a try - the actors do the best they can and the production values are quite high. But in the end, this is just so unsatisfying.

This is a masterful film; I caught it at a gay film festival, but I don't understand why it hasn't been released. From the opening scenes with Jeremy Irons as an agent and a punk rock song playing in the background, you know you'in in the hands of a masterful storyteller. Zeffirelli structures the plot as the creation of a masterpiece that got away; a fictional film version of "Carmen." The conceit of the film is that Callas (late in her life) has been persuaded to make a film of Carmen (a role she had only recored but never sung). Since her voice is past its primew, she lip-syncs herself. This brilliant premise allows Fanny Ardant (who is simply brilliant as Callas) to lipsync to old Callas recordings. It also enables Zeffirelli to include several spectacular scenes from "Carmen" as part of the plot. I would rank this among the very best films about opera ever made.