Madame Sousatzka (1988)

A 15 year old Indian piano prodigy (Navin Chowdhry) is taken under the wing of the great piano teacher Madame Sousatzka (Shirley MacLaine). It's not long before Sousatzka clashes with the lad's mother (Shabana Azmi) who is eager for the boy to start playing concerts before the teacher thinks he's ready. It doesn't help when a promoter (Leigh Lawson) attempts to lure the young man away from his teacher and enter the commercial world. While the story (based on the novel by Bernice Rubens) isn't particularly original, the screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (HOWARDS END) provides a solid framework for MacLaine's terrific performance, one of her very best. MacLaine's Sousatzka is one of those brilliant monsters for whom Art (in this case, music) takes precedence over everything, investing her very heart and soul into the "children" she creates even as her heart gets broken every time. She's surrounded by a colorful company of assorted characters played by Peggy Ashcroft, Twiggy, Geoffrey Bayldon and Sam Howard. The capable direction is by John Schlesinger and while the film is far removed from his superb work in the 1960s and 1970s, it's still a solid example of good craftsmanship.