For his first original screenplay since
The Conversation (1974), Francis Ford Coppola drew on memories of his parents, both classical musicians, and he invests the movie's early scenes, shot in black and white among the old-world architecture of Buenos Aires, with all the control and delicacy of a piano sonata. A young man working on a cruise ship (Alden Ehrenreich) lands in Argentina and seeks out his reclusive older brother (Vincent Gallo, excellent), who's none too happy to see him or to discuss their regal father (Klaus Maria Brandauer), a lionized symphony conductor. Coppola's fondness for the operatic gets the better of him as the action approaches a climax, but the movie is girded by a sense of knotty family history. With Maribel Verdu and Carmen Maura. 127 min.
By
J.R. Jones
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