It can be a disconcerting experience watching determined feminist George Sand pursuing such an insecure object of desire after the freethinking French author goes weak in the knees for the heavenly music of young Frederick Chopin. Judy Davis gets plenty of mileage out of Sand's confident iconoclasm (ignoring the low moment when she tries to win the composer's attention by exchanging her trademark trousers for a lacy dress patterned after the Polish flag), and her lively performance goes a long way toward overcoming the inadequacies of a script that is less witty than it would have us believe. For everyone else in the cast it's simply a costume party, and director James Lapine leaves them free to indulge in some shameless overacting (Emma Thompson, in particular, gives a rare irritating performance). The whole thing doesn't amount to anything more than a shallow, highbrow romantic comedy, but at least the music is good, and if nothing else the film helped support the costume design industry for several weeks.

With such a stellar cast and interesting subject (not to mention high marks on this site), it seemed this picture would be a delight and a treasure. Instead the plot is very short, tediously dragged out by the repetition of the same scenes over time: The Publisher's Room, The Ex-Lover, The Duel, The Come-On, The Visit. The best part of the film, where Emma Thompson delights as a daffy duchess, has no relationship to the rest of the picture. Themes are begun but never finished, and as the end credits ran, I cried out loud, "That's *it*?" I was willing to put up with the repetition in the hopes that the ending would somehow tie up the loose ends or show character development, but instead it was just plot, plot, plot. The actors played their parts well (I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of Grant's performance) but this is a film of no texture or depth. Definitely no reason to see it again.

Every so often I find on TV a major film that I somehow never heard of but nevertheless is surprisingly good. I don't know how I missed this one before. It was recently on the cable channel PLEX with no commercial interruptions.Drama, comedy, and romance, all in one excellent film. Great script. Great cast. Great Music.Reunites stars of the musical "Sunday in the Park With George" but this time not singing and their characters have little interaction. Emma Thompson in a minor role. Judy Davis does a marvelous job as George Sands. Hugh Grant is a handsome but foppish and squeamish Frederick Chopin, and is as he usually is.* Nov. 13, 2014: The above review was written about 6 months ago. I just re-watched the film on MPLEX and didn't recall a single thing about it, so it was as if I was viewing it the first time. I still enjoined the film but I don't think it deserved my previous 10 star rating. I can't say it is one of my most enjoyed films.

British period pieces all carry the same themes. Two kindred hearts fight either for or against each other throughout the entire film until finally one succumbs and we are left with the cliché "happy" ending. The story behind Impromptu is no different, but what makes it a bit more enjoyable than your typical film of this genre is the wiry excitement of the cast. Director James Lapine has amazingly gathered a very talented cast of actors/actresses like Hugh Grant, Mandy Patinkin, and Emma Thompson, to carry his film, but what shames me to say is that it does not create cinematic perfection. These actors/actresses all have talent in which they demonstrate accordingly in this film, but (cause there is always a but…) by the end you feel as if you missed their greatest of scenes. You feel as if you have been cheated out of their greatest potential. This realization is formed by the film's shabby editing, it's misleading story, its emotional-less connection of characters, or the randomness of the ending. Either way, even with the greatest players having fun with their roles, Impromptu slowly flushes itself down the period-piece toilet because it focuses itself to greatly on the actors while sinking the rest of the story.To begin, as I mentioned before, the greatness of the actors giving nearly 100% to their characters is a charm that is missed in so many other period piece films. Impromptu kept me awake and excited about what would happen next entirely due to the characters. Some may laugh at the portrayal of Chopin by Hugh Grant, but he contains himself well and shows that he may have some acting "chops" under that flopsy hair of his. Emma Thompson is hysterical as the dimwitted hostess, while Mandy Patinkin's Jiminy Cricket-esquire character Alfred De Musset definitely needed more screen time. Judy Davis did well with her character, I just have trouble with her "I need to win an Oscar with every role" type performance that Davis is notorious for giving us with every film. The only actress that I despised throughout the film was Bernadette Peters' role. Peters is a decent actress and has proved that she can handle some heavy performances, but her role as the "evil" friend in this film was extremely out of her league. You cannot portray "corruption" in Peters' eyes; it is just physically impossible. When all of these actors are together on screen, especially during their sinister performance at Thompson's house, one cannot help but be pulled into their world. Excitement, humor, and an aura of charisma surround these characters, alas; it is what Lapine did with the rest of the film that utterly destroys it.Sarah Kernochan has amazing characters, funny situations, and socially challenged themes; it is the direction of Lapine that internally destroys the film. The movement between the characters and situations were flawed because Lapine couldn't quite grasp the quickness of this film. From the beginning it is established that these are some of the greatest minds in British history together on screen, so why did we have to pace through the film as if they were also the oldest characters in history. There were times when I felt that Lapine saw the odd pacing of the story and told his actors to speed it up on screen. This only caused more of an issue because you cannot ask the characters/actors to carry the film on their own; they need a dedicated story to complete it. Then, when Lapine tried to counter by focusing a bit stronger on the story, he lost his characters and we, as audience members, missed out on possibly some great moments with our actors. Impromptu eventually became a big battle of tug-of-war, where on one side the actors (doing a great job) were pulling the film, and on the other side was Lapine pulling, trying to decipher how to correctly balance the pacing and story of this genre. Characters moved without reason, bonds were illogically formed, and hatred was built upon mismatched moments. It was utter and total chaos.What I am most disappointed about with this film was the lack of development towards the social oddities that surrounded our characters. Here we have the amazing opportunity to witness a great author and the rarity of cross-dressing. In this film we had the opportunity to develop why a powerful painter only drew dead animals. In this film we had the opportunity to explain the passion of love, the morbid curiosity of death, and the duels that combine the two. How about the opportunity to see the competition between Liszt and Chopin? Earlier I mentioned my concern about missing out on our characters because Lapine was struggling too hard with the story, it is these opportunities that I believe hurt us the most. I was angry that we had such strong characters, amazing actors, yet no excitement in developing them.Overall, as a character film, Impromptu was fabulous. If you would like to see the crème de la crème of British cinema doing their best, then this is the film for you. On the flip side, if you would like to see a director's talent train wreck the entire picture, then Impromptu is also your film. Typically, as a critic you find yourself upset with the actors, the mushy themes, or the ominous lacking of direction, for Impromptu, the latter would best describe the failures. Lapine bit off more than he could chew and thankfully had strong actors to pick up the slack. Sadly, that couldn't save this sinking ship. Lapine had so much potential with Kernochan's story that I do not think he did his homework well enough. Impromptu could have been a darkly entertaining story that could have evoked historical conversation. I will adamantly maintain that it was due to Lapine's horrid direction that this film failed to ever take off into mainstream cinema.Grade: ** out of *****