What if you made a choice that you might regret and had the opportunity to change it?
Two Pianos, directed by Arnaud Desplechin, is a French film that begins with Mathias (François Civil), a former child piano prodigy who has been living in Japan, returning home to Lyon, France. Mathias has come back to play a concert with his former mentor, Elena (Charlotte Rampling), who is hosting a party where he runs into Claude (Nadia Tereszkiewicz). They are both surprised to see each other, and there’s a clear history between them. It causes Claude to leave before she even enters the party, and for Mathias to go on a drinking bender, which lands him in a drunk tank until he is bailed out by his agent, Max (Hippolyte Girardot). Before rehearsals, Mathias explores the city and comes across a boy in the park who looks eerily familiar.
At rehearsals, he eventually learns from Elena that she called him to play with her one last time because she’s planning to announce her retirement. Her memory is not what it once was, and it’s interfering with her ability to perform—it’s time. When visiting his mother, they discuss his upbringing, learning the piano and violin, and he finds old photos, including one that looks similar to the boy in the park. He coincidentally encounters this mysterious boy again later on the subway and begins to follow him. The building the boy enters turns out to be the home of an old friend, Pierre (Jérémy Lewin), who also happens to be Claude’s husband.
“Mathias has come back to play a concert with his former mentor, Elena…”
When Pierre suddenly dies, Mathias attends the wake, where he and Claude finally cross paths again. This time, the boy, Simon (Valentin Picard), is there. He shows a photo to Claude, who first mistakes it for Simon, before being told it’s actually an old photo of Mathias at around Simon’s current age. The mystery is revealed: Simon is actually Mathias’s son, not Pierre’s.
In Two Pianos, I suppose the title could represent two lives — the life before and the life after. The classic “what if” scenario. What would my life be like if I had stayed or made a different choice with a different person? That’s what the film explores: the choices Mathias and Claude make, the consequences of those choices, and the possibility—albeit somewhat conveniently, with Pierre out of the way — of what could now be. I thought director Arnaud Desplechin did just enough here to tell that story without betraying the nature of Mathias’s character, as audiences will see.
What also drew me to the drama was the casting of actress Charlotte Rampling. I first saw her in another French film, Swimming Pool (highly recommended), and she’s managed to cross over into many Hollywood films and television projects, so she should look familiar to viewers. I knew that if she signed on to a project, it was likely worth watching. What I didn’t expect was to be introduced to François Civil and Nadia Tereszkiewicz, who really drew me into the film with their performances. I had to look up their credits to make sure I hadn’t missed them somewhere previously, but nothing immediately stood out. Tereszkiewicz is the true standout, as she balances the loss of her husband while sorting through lingering feelings for a former flame who has suddenly reentered her life.
Unfortunately, when it comes to Rampling, her character’s storyline concludes midway through Two Pianos, just as the Claude and Mathias storyline begins to take center stage.
