The star rating above represents an average for the four separate stories, independently filmed and contained within this feature-length film. The first story, "The Facts of Life," gets a 5. The second, "The Alien Corn," also gets a 5. The third, "The Kite," gets only a 3. But the fourth, "The Colonel's Wife" gets a 6. The biggest problem is the material. Maugham's short stories simply haven't aged well, even given the fact that the short story, as a literary genre, is a distinctly tough category in which to produce truly compelling product. And too often, Maugham's story telling is full of gratuitous choice -- if the characters choose one way, the story obviously will end a particular way, if they choose the other course of action, the ending will match that choice. There isn't a lot of surprise here, and not very much in the way of caring about the characters either. It's not the stuff great literature is founded upon, and the movie displays those faults tellingly. Still, good acting, crisp story lines, balanced, even nuanced pacing make this outing quite tolerable, and even engaging in some places.
Review of Quartet
