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Vitus (2006)

Director: Fredi M. Murer

3

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Movie review

From Time Out New York

There’s magic in Swiss director Fredi M. Murer’s Vitus so long as young star Teo Gheorghiu (only 12 when the film was shot) is at the piano, playing Bach, Schumann and Liszt with exceptional sophistication. A real-life musical prodigy making his screen debut, Gheorghiu is the title character, a Zurich boy blessed—or is it burdened?—with musical and mathematical genius. Vitus’s English mother (Jenkins) gives up her career and pins all her hopes on him, while his father (Jucker) struggles at work (he invents, of all things, hearing aids). The boy’s mentor is Grandpa (Ganz, last seen as Hitler in The Downfall), a free-spirited carpenter who dreams of flying and builds Vitus a pair of wings.

When Gheorghiu isn’t in front of the keyboard, Vitus flounders. Murer (who wrote the screenplay with Peter Luisi and Lukas B. Suter) has tossed in a host of underdeveloped subplots, including Vitus’s secret stock-market maneuvers and a schoolboy crush on his baby-sitter. Worse yet, the film never settles on a consistent tone: Is this a whimsical fairy tale or an earnest family drama? As Emperor Joseph once complained to Mozart: Too many notes.

Author: Tom Beer 2007-06-25 22:19:52

Time Out New York

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User reviews of this film

  • José Ledesma Ilhuicatzin said...
    Posted on Jul 30 2008 10:05 Hello New York, Im live in México. I saw the movie and I like it soo much. I think the movie is an excelent history about a child of twelve years old. He take the piano like a genius and excelent with the matematics, reading encyclopedias. However, I think the esential message is let it be every human to live your life and there are a moment to every situation. I want to ask pardon, but my english isn´t the better I speak spanish, I hope unbderstand. Thanks.
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Vitus

Cast & crew

Director: Fredi M. Murer

Cast: Fabrizio Borsani, Teo Gheorghiu, Julika Jenkins, Urs Jucker, Bruno Ganz full cast

Rated: PG

Duration: 123 mins


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