Synopsis
A biopic of Alma Mahler, the wife of composer Gustav Mahler (as well as Walter Gropius and Franz Werfel), and the mistress of Oskar Kokoschka.
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Cast
- Sarah WynterAlma Mahler
- Jonathan PryceGustav Mahler
- Vincent PerezOskar Kokoschka
- Simon VerhoevenWalter Gropius
- Gregor SebergFranz Werfel
- Dagmar SchwarzAnna Sofie Schindler-Moll
- Wolfgang HübschCarl Moll
- August SchmölzerGustav Klimt
- Johannes SilberschneiderAlexander von Zemlinsky
- Renée FlemingFrances Alda
Recommendations
- 63
Chicago Tribune
It's a movie of elegant surfaces, great background music (by both the Mahlers), gossipy underpinnings and pretensions to romantic grandeur. - 58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
A rather dull movie. - 50
Portland Oregonian
The stifling piety of this film -- which regards anything old and vaguely arty as next to sacred -- needs some serious airing out. - 50
L.A. Weekly
She is known as one of the great muses, yet director Bruce Beresford, Wynter and screenwriter Marilyn Levy are never clear if this is by design or chance. - 50
New York Daily News
There's great music and lovely settings, but the filmmakers have done little more with their subject than reiterate the Britannica's description of her. - 50
The New York Times
For all the talk of artistic and amorous passion, the film is trapped in snobbish inertia; its idea of period drama amounts to a kind of highbrow name- dropping. - 50
New York Post
Was Alma a masochist? Repressed? Neurotic? A pre-feminist? Don't look for insight here. - 30
Chicago Reader
Director Bruce Beresford -- not intending to be funny but succeeding wildly.