Amour

Amour is about an elderly, well-off couple who've lived a long life together, music tutors, musicians together before they retired; he, who can be monstrous, but also terribly kind; she, an elegant woman with a playful intellect. The pair come home from an evening out at a regal piano recital; she's talking about some particularly piquant semiquavers, he's holding onto the top of the shelf in the hallway as he shuffles his shoes off at the heels. She moves to the bathroom, and he pauses to look at her and remarks how especially pretty she looks. She laughs and modestly swats his affections way. The next day, the couple are having breakfast, talking about nipping down to Virgin for a version of the recital on CD; she gets up from the table to bring him an egg that's been boiling in a pot on the stove, sits back down at the table, and quietly has a stroke. All that has grown and forged over the many years into what has been immovably 'her' drops momentarily out of her body; her cheeks are as rosy and as beautiful as they've always been, her face hangs in a soft smile, but her eyes, while they're glistening, are somewhere far away, drifting, and unaware they're lost. A deeply romantic, but unflinching, and painfully present examination of an elderly couple suddenly thrust into the conclusion of their years together, Amour is the best film Michael Haneke has ever made.

In cinemas now.