The Page Turner--A nice satisfying movie.

Paul (Kevin Bishop) is an aspiring pianist who finds himself a page turner for his idol, an accomplished classical pianist, Richard Kennington (Paul Rhys). The brief professional relationship becomes flirtation instantly, but Paul's manic mother, Pamela (Juliet Stevenson), gets in the way. Months later, on a trip to Barcelona, Spain, Paul and Pamela meet up with Richard again. This is actually initiated by Paul, who notices a poster for a concert just passed of Richard Washington, and Paul looks up (by calling every hotel in Barcelona) which hotel the concert pianist is at, and makes contact with his 'idol'.

The movie deals with Paul's relationship with his mother, his 'coming out', and more so, the growth of a potentially promising young pianist and glimpses of an accomplished one and his 'manager'.

I found that although the movie had certainly a strong 'gay' theme to it (well--it is about the relationship of a young man with an older one), it definitely was not THE movie, with many other things and nuances colouring the rest of it.

I enjoyed the movie a lot, and had read The Page Turner previously. I found that the movie was faithful to the movie.

As a final postscript, there were very mixed reviews of this by various reviewers. Some loved it, some hated it. Every one pulled out at least one of the actors (but not the same one!) as being poorly acted--the mother, the concert pianist, the young prodigy. I certainly found all of the characters very believable, and realistic for the roles they were playing. Each was complex, and I don't think any of them were parodies.

A thoughtful and interesting film (his first in English) by Spanish director Ventura Pons.