Ivory – Review

Ivory

Starring: Tim Draxl, Travis Fimmel, Peter Stormare and Martin Landau

Director: Andrew W. Chan

23 year old aspiring pianist Andreas Goodman (Tim Draxl) uproots himself and leaves his current piano teacher Leon Spencer (Martin Landau) to join the Oberlin Conservatory to study under Olga Primkova (Erika Marozsan) who happens to be on the judging panel for the international Liszt Competition, a competition that if won, means instant career.

The problems with Ivory start from the beginning, Andreas is 23 years old and knows that he is ancient for an aspiring pianist, he frowns upon possibly having to teach Piano he wants more, he wants to be a world famous Pianist, Andreas has a few things going against him, his grandfather was a world famous pianist and Andreas strives to emulate him rather than create his own voice, he he hasn’t made it by the age 23 doing things his own way and refuses to take advice to the point that if he mentions playing Brahms (which nobody but him, wants him to do) one more time I will fly to Budapest and choke him with the sheet music. Andreas’ main competitor/friend Jake (Travis Fimmel) an aspiring pianist in his own right who abuses cocaine to get up for his performances has a girlfriend who Andreas can’t help but hook up with. Later on we find out that by the most ridiculous plot twist in history that Andreas former teacher Leon Spencer (who detests competition) is now a last minute fill in to head up the judging panel. This twist is more convenient than a 7-11.

Andreas is the type of person you want to fail, he lacks any form of charisma, repeats the same mistakes over again and is a worthless friend. Unfortunately he is so bland that he can’t inspire me enough to care about him as a character, which is a huge problem when he is the protagonist. I want to love someone or hate them, not caring is not an acceptable option for commanding and hour and a half of my life.

The film peaks in its opening voice over when Andreas Goodman states “You have to decide, when you have lived your whole life under the shadow of greatness, whether finding yourself means living under the shadow or escaping from it”

Ivory never quite finds itself and it wouldn’t know greatness if it was composed by Brahms.

Grade-68