The Screening Room

After your career as a maestro has been demolished and you’ve been branded an "enemy of the state" by no less than Leonid Brezhnev, what do you do for an encore?

If you’re Andrei Filipov, former conductor of the Bolshoi Orchestra, you spend 30 years hoping for a second chance and, when opportunity knocks in "Le Concert (Th Concert)," it turns out to have been well worth the wait.

Director Radu Mihaileanu’s lively comedy-drama sends Andrei (Alexeï Guskov) and former fellow Bolshoi artist Sasha (Dimitri Nazarov) on a hectic mission to round up almost five dozen musicians for a last-minute booking at Paris’ renowned Chatelet Theatre, where they will — with a whole lot of luck — finally seize the spotlight once again.

Aside from restoring his reputation, Andrei has another reason to visit the City of Light: Violinist Anne-Marie Jacquet (Melanie Laurent of director Quentin Tarantino’s "Inglourious Basterds") has agreed to be the star soloist for the evening, and Andrei has been following her career since the beginning.

Yes, there is a secret connection. No, happily, it’s not exactly what you might be thinking.

After an engaging set-up that efficiently spells out Andrei’s circumstances past and present (he has been reduced to toiling as a janitor in the theater in which he was formerly a superstar), "Le Concert" loses some of its zip in a slightly clunky middle stretch involving Andrei’s crew running wild in Paris. But all is forgiven when the orchestra members finally stop playing around and actually start playing.

In 1980, Andrei’s presentation of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto was halted midway by the blustering Brezhnev, who snapped Andrei’s baton in half and denounced him in front of the shocked patrons. Now Andrei is conducting that piece in front of a sold-out Parisian crowd, with Anne-Marie — who has never performed Tchaikovsky before — at his side.

Although mostly humorous, "Le Concert" does an impressive job of conveying Andrei’s precarious emotional state as he begins to worry that this incredible possibility could easily turn into an international embarrassment. Guskov’s effectively understated performance is superbly complemented by Laurent, who shows us Anne-Marie’s dedication to her work and her impatience with suffering fools. (The actress also spent two months studying violin prior to filming; the effort shows.)

What could have been cartoonish stereotypes  — the neurotic conductor and the bratty diva — instead become sensitively drawn characters with genuine depth and drive.

"Le Concert" climaxes with that long-awaited Tchaikovsky collaboration, in which the volatile music is infused with a potpourri of potent emotions. Ghosts are exorcized, futures are changed and the movie launches into a crescendo that threatens to bring down the house.

With apologies to George Herbert, performing well is the best revenge.

’Le Concert’
Presented by East Lansing Film Society, Lansing Symphony Orchestra and East Lansing Rotary Club
7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 12
Hannah Community Center, 819 Abbot Road, East Lansing
$10 general admiision; $25 VIP Tickets for movie and afterglow reception
(517) 487-5001
www.lansingsymphony.org