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Customer Reviews of The Piano

Ada and Flora are jarring but prinicpals' acting pulls you in.
Enjoyable movie despite rather annoying personality of Ada (Holly Hunter), the mute pianist/mail order bride, and her equally annoying, illegitimate daughter Flora (Anna Pacquin). This pair arrives in colonial New Zealand with a bulky piano. As all their stuff has to be toted uphill on foot through dense jungle the piano gets left behind by new husband Stewart (Sam Neill). This gets the new marriage off to a bad start, as Ada sets quite a store by her piano. In fact, aside from braiding her daughter's hair, Ada doesn't seem to have any other interests. She certainly seems uninterested in pitching in around the homestead or being a good role model of a frontier wife or mother; while Stewart is chopping wood and trying awkwardly to negotiate with the locals to acquire more land, Ada is seen heading off to give, ahem, piano lessons, to their manly neighbor, Baines (Harvey Keitel), who has acquired the piano. The lessons actually are opportunities for Ada to get the piano back, one key at a time, by letting Baines make improper advances (which she seems to enjoy thoroughly). All this while whiny little Flora, who is brought along as a supposed chaperone, is left outdoors to cool her heels -what a thoughtful Mom that Ada is. Eventually Stewart gets wise to what is going on, and is enraged, the more so because Ada has been giving him the cold shoulder all along. While Ada is kind of a jerk, she is also plays expressively and beautifully on her piano and has an irresistable charm with her delicate features and intense dark eyes. Holly Hunter makes it easy to believe that Baines and Stewart would both fall in love with her despite her cold self-absorption. Both men are very handsome and appealing, and I was gratified at seeing Mr. Keitel with no clothes on, the scene where he lovingly and gracefully polishes the piano as if it were Ada herself, while he is totally in the buff, is very sensual. If only the plot had called for Mr. Neill to be seen taking his clothes off, it would have really made up for a lot of the irritating behavior of Ada and Flora. I was really impressed by Holly Hunter's piano playing and how she made you almost like Ada despite her flaws.

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a question
I have seen this film many times, and love it more with each viewing. I have a question, though, for those of you who have seen it on DVD: does the DVD include alternet endings? I am looking for the extended under-water scene at the end which seems to have been cut from the American VHS release.

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Beautiful Erotic Lovestory
This drama is amazing. It is beautifully shot, brilliantly crafted, and marvellously acted. The story is intense, tight, and very unusual. And the lovestory is gorgeous.