| Music from Another Room | |
|---|---|
Promotional film poster |
|
| Directed by | Charlie Peters |
| Produced by | John Bertolli Brad Krevoy |
| Written by | Charlie Peters |
| Starring | Jude Law Jennifer Tilly Gretchen Mol Martha Plimpton Brenda Blethyn Jon Tenney Jeremy Piven Vincent Laresca Jane Adams |
| Music by | Richard Gibbs |
| Cinematography | Richard Crudo |
| Editing by | Carroll Timothy O'Meara |
| Distributed by | Orion Pictures Corporation |
| Release date(s) | 1998 |
| Running time | 104 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Music From Another Room is a 1998 romantic comedy that follows the exploits of Danny (Jude Law), a young man who grew up believing he was destined to marry the girl he helped deliver as a five-year-old boy when a family friend went into emergency labor. Twenty-five years later, Danny returns to his hometown and finds the irresistible Anna Swann (Gretchen Mol) but she finds it easy to resist him since she is already engaged to dreamboat Eric. In pursuit of Anna, Danny finds himself entangled with each of the eccentric Swanns including blind, sheltered Nina (Jennifer Tilly), cynical sister Karen (Martha Plimpton), big brother Bill (Jeremy Piven) and dramatic mother Grace (Brenda Blethyn) as he fights to prove that fate should never be messed with and passion should never be practical.
Contents |
The film begins with 5-year-old Danny and his military father visiting a family friend's (Grace's) house at Thanksgiving. When Grace goes to labor at the end of the night, Danny's father asks him to unwrap the umbilical cord from around the baby's neck to assure its survival. After a successful birth, Danny decides to himself that the baby girl born, Anna, is meant to be with him forever.
Twenty years later, Danny moves back to that hometown from London where he lived with his father who has recently died. After a "friend" offered a place to stay with her and retracts it after being coerced into moving to New York. Homeless and jobless, Danny finds a cheap apartment owned by a bakery shop couple who also offer him little jobs delivering cakes.
During his first delivery, Danny gets lost in a large neighborhood and coincidentally stops at the home of Grace for directions. Nina, Anna's blind sister, opens the door to help when Anna rushes outside to leave and Danny sees her for the first time. Anna and Nina's family orders a cake from the bakery and Danny immediately leaves to deliver it, hoping to see Anna in the process, but crashes his bike into a car right outside the home. After shaking Grace's hand dazily, he proceeds to pass out.
In the home, Danny awakes to meet Anna's entire family -- Billy (Jeremy Piven), her brother, and Billy's mentally-distraught wife, Irene (Jane Adams), her father Richard (Bruce Jarchow), her sister Karen (Martha Plimpton), and boyfriend Eric (Jon Tenney). Due to his bicycle mishap and Grace's realization of who Danny is, he is invited to stay for dinner where he witnesses friendly bickering, a short murder-suicide stint from Irene, and news of Anna's recent engagement to Eric. Danny also offers to read to Nina.
Shortly after, Danny is reading to Nina and Grace when he insists they continue in the park, and a reluctant Nina agrees. While there, Nina over-reacts to what she believes is a bee, and a nearby Anna comes over to help, later scolding Danny.
Later, Danny finally gets the job as a tiler/mosaic artist in a local museum and believes he will be able to do good work there. After work one day, Karen wants Danny's help with a project she's created against the local theatre's play called "Actors Without Dicks," hoping to stop what she feels is sexism. The two go into a restaurant where Karen verbally assaults some brawny men and eventually convinces Danny to get on board because Anna already is.
At a lunch with Anna and her family, Anna allows Eric to read a poem she received from a secret admirer. Soon after at Karen's play, Anna confronts Danny about the poem, calling it "drivel," and he confesses his love for her, asking her to run away and marry him. Anna then rejects him kindly, and after the play as she rides away in a taxi with Danny chasing her. Obsessed with the passion she sees from Danny, Anna seduces Eric.
While at work the next day, Danny is confronted by Billy who believes he is coming onto Irene. Billy claims everyone knows about Danny's feelings towards Anna and that no one likes him except Grace "because she's crazy, and Nina, because she's blind."
Danny continues to take Nina places that resemble settings from the book he is reading, including a nightclub. After Danny is whisked away for a dance by a Hispanic woman, Nina is offered a dance as well. Once Danny had finished one dance, all he promised to a worried Nina, he finds her dancing with the same, Jesus, as before and attempts to separate them. This causes confrontation with the gentlemen's tough Hispanic friends which sends Danny to the hospital. Jesus waits at the hospital with Nina and is sweetly attentive on driving her home, which he does (much to Anna's dismay).
After taking him home, Anna blames Danny on the entire situation while Danny claims Nina was "finally having fun" and Eric and Anna are "lacking passion." Their argument climbs to Anna exclaiming that she has been in love and is attracted to Danny, but only because of his attraction to her. Anna tells him he has "no hope whatsoever," while he believes they were fated. Danny pulled out a double-headed coin (unknown to Anna) and says that if it's heads, they become lovers. While she is supposed to read it, she claims it's tails and says fate was meant to keep them apart. Jesus begins reading to Nina instead of Danny, and proceeds to ask her out. After he kisses her cheek, Nina is appalled, demanding to be taken home.
At a bookstore the next day, Danny tells Eric he is in love with Anna, there is nothing to worry about, and that he is very lucky to have such a woman. Eric remains calm and is a bit amused by Danny's childishness. Jesus takes Nina to his workplace, a kitchen, and calls out, "I want you to meet the most beautiful girl in the world!" much to Nina's amusement. Grace remains ill with a bed nurse, unable to control much her body and mind. She tells Anna, believing she is Nina, that she is worried about Anna not being youthful. After work, Jesus enthusiastically shows Nina a bicycle that he bought for her, but Nina is displeased and embarrassed. Jesus stops her in her attempt to walk away, holding her while she cries, stating, "We're not a mistake." Nina and Jesus ride home on bicycles together. A little while later in the house, Jesus tells Nina he believes Anna is cold and soon after ties a scarf around his eyes. Anna watches through the window as the two kiss, touched and jealous by their passion.
Because of this, she immediately goes to Danny's apartment and says, "It was heads." The two then sleep together.
At Billy's house, Irene screams at Billy and points a gun at him (supposedly given to her by her therapist and is meant to not be loaded, as a stress reliever) because she believes he is having an affair. After it turns out to be loaded and he pleads that he is not cheating, Irene points the gun to her own head and asks once more, this time with a different answer. She quickly shoots at Billy, hitting his foot, and laughs as he tumbles in pain.
Nina and Jesus have an informal, Hispanic elopement during the night involving neither of their families. After returning home to tell her mother gleefully, Grace exasperates her angry emotions regarding death and passes away in Richard's arms. Anna leaves Danny's apartment to tell her mother about her relationship with Danny only to find that she has died, while Danny waited unknowingly for Anna outside the bakery. At Grace's house the next day, Anna and Danny meet and she eventually goes home with Eric.
Danny works hard on his tiling. At Grace's funeral, Anna says she already told Eric about their affair and "it is already forgotten." Danny tells Anna he is leaving in a couple of days, kisses her cheek, and says goodbye. At the dinner table that night, Eric announces he and Anna are going to Paris to get married. The next day, Nina tells Anna, "I know you don't love Eric... Go find Danny. ... You love him," to which Anna agrees.
At the train station, Anna chased down Danny and claims he has always been right about the two of them and begs him to take her with him. Unfortunately for her, Danny says that passion is talking and it won't last. She holds up a regular coin and says if it lands heads, she may go with him. Without looking, he claims it's heads and the two kiss.
The final scene is 5-year-old Danny stating, "I'm gonna marry her."
Los Angeles and Pasadena, California and at the Park Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.
It featured the soundtrack Truly Madly Deeply by Savage Garden and the song Day After Day, written by Julian Lennon and Mark Spiro and performed by Julian Lennon.[1]