Guest Author - Peggy Maddox

Until I watched The Piano (1993), I didn't have a very high opinion of Holly Hunter's acting ability. I'd seen her in As Good As It Gets (1997) and, more recently, in half an episode of her television series Saving Grace (2007).

Watching only half an episode was the result of being absolutely repulsed by the vulgarity of the character Hunter portrays on that show. I can't turn the channel fast enough at the end of The Closer.

Hunter's part in As Good As It Gets didn't show me much either, but then Jack Nicholson is probably my least favorite actor. I suppose I was too busy not liking him to to think much of the character who would be willing to become romantically involved with him.

Now that I've watched The Piano, however, I am very impressed with Hunter's acting ability. She conveys the angry, tormented character of Ada McGrath without saying a word. She does it with body language and facial expression alone. Her eyes in particular reveal the woman trapped in Victorian female expectations and self-imposed silence.

I won't say much about the film so as not to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. I'll only say that it wasn't at all what I expected.

The film was written and directed by Jane Campion. She won an Academy award for the original screenplay, which only a woman could have written.

The story is set in Campion's native New Zealand during a period of European settlement. A frontier atmosphere of rough living conditions and exploitation of the native Maoris is realistically portrayed. Characters wade through mud the consistency of quicksand. Maori men, women, and children with blue tattoos on their faces intermingle with the Europeans. Sometimes the cultures clash, as during a badly-thought out production of the tale of Bluebeard.

The Hunter character, Ada McGrath, arrives in New Zealand from the United Kingdom, as much an article of merchandise as the piano she brings with her. Her father has sent her to marry a homesteading farmer she's never met.

Ada, her young daughter Flora, played by Anna Paquin, and all their goods, including a piano, are unloaded on a deserted beach. The prospective bridegroom was supposed to meet her ship, but he's delayed and Ada and Flora must fend for themselves against the elements for what seems to be several days and nights.

When the prospective husband, Alisdair Stewart, played by Sam Neill, arrives with porters, the piano is left on the beach. Ada, to whom the piano is a substitute for human intercourse, tries to persuade Stewart to leave her trunks and bring the piano, but he overrides her objections.

The problems inherent in being a mail order bride are compounded by the fact that Ada has been mute since the age of six. Her inability to speak is not the result of accident or illness. It is a manifestation of her anger and stubbornness. Apparently she simply decided that conversation is trivial and pointless.

Ada brings her young daughter with her. We never learn about Ada's previous marriage or love affair. The daughter, played by Anna Paquin, tells fanciful tales about the relationship between her father and mother, but a "true" version is never offered.

The abandoned piano is rescued by George Baines (Harvey Keitel), a European who has gone native to the extent that his face is tatooed like those of the Maori. He is uncultured and illiterate, but he senses the importance of the piano to Ada. The piano becomes the instrument of intimacy between him and the unhappy, angry, sexually-repressed woman.

A word of warning: the film contains sexual situations that include full frontal nudity.

One more thing that has raised Holly Hunter in my estimation: she really plays piano solos in the movie.