This was a somewhat entertaining film for someone (me) who knew little about Tchaikovsky. I did look up a bit about him, and while you couldn't call this a rigorous biography, it hit the high points. Obviously it was convenient to have all of the music to score the film with in the public domain. The music was fantastic, but hey, it's Tchaikovsky. Outstanding acting performances by Chamberlain, and Glenda Jackson, and Izabella Telezynska. A little quibble with a previous comment. Kenjha wrote "The film includes such silly scenes as Mrs. Tchaikovsky having affairs with Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin to make her husband jealous." My view was that Nina's mother told her that the men in question were Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin, but she knew that they were not. She was taking advantage of her daughter's delusions to make money, more or less pimping her. I found the direction somewhat annoying, and it wasn't apparent at first what scenes were "reality" and which were dream/fantasy sequences. The scene about visualizing the famous 1812 Overture was particularly annoying. But overall, I ended up liking the film.