TIFF 2025: Two Pianos Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Two Pianos marks the first time in more than two decades that director Arnaud Desplechin has premiered one of his films beyond the seaside luxury of the Cannes Film Festival. What this all means is anybody’s guess—films do and don’t appear at different festivals for any number of reasons, including simply not being ready in time—so rather than speculating about what this might mean with regards to the quality of the film, it would be wiser to focus on the opportunity this occasion affords.

Given Desplechin’s far greater familiarity back home than with a North American TIFF-bound crowd, who’s to say how his particular brand of fractured domestic drama will land without any home-field bolstering provided beforehand? To answer that query, Two Pianos offers quintessential Desplechin for any newcomers—which is to say, a film as awkwardly assembled and topically thin as anything else he’s brought to the table.

In terms of the film, it all begins with its premise, at once overly involved and sparsely thought-out. Exploring the ever-popular subject of infidelity—one can take the auteur out of France, but they can’t take France out of the auteur—Two Pianos centres on Mathias Vogler (Civil), a twenty-something piano virtuoso returning to France after a long absence at the behest of his aging mentor Elena (Rampling). Upon his return, an unexpected reunion with a former flame Claude (Tereszkiewicz) will bring Mathias towards realizations about what, and who, he’s left behind.

In the grand scheme of Desplechin’s recent misfires (Brother and Sister wasn’t exactly God’s gift to man as much as it was God’s gift to unintentional comedy), Two Pianos certainly comes closest to a fully formed concerto, but the director’s moving pieces never manage to hit the right notes, simply because too many ivories are being slammed all at once. What results is a mentor-mentee relationship that’s picked up and dropped at a moment’s notice, and a will-they-won’t-they romantic tension whose major milestones seem to be occurring between the director’s clumsily implemented cuts. In essence, it’s a Mia Hansen-Løve with half the pieces missing.

At the end of the day, the end result is often an emotionally explosive display of intermittent sexual tension-and-release surrounding a greater quest for emotional stability that never translates beyond occasional flourishes of synchronicity floated between dual Steinways. With Two Pianos, Arnaud Desplechin’s staccato rhythms don’t do justice to a symphony that requires the utmost precision of tempo.

still courtesy of TIFF

If you liked this, please read our other reviews here and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter or Instagram or like us on Facebook.

Julian Malandruccolo

letterboxd.com/CynicOfCinema/