Duet for One

[mrsl]

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As much as Julie Andrews has made me smile and laugh in the past . . . that's how much she made me cry in this one. She's a concert violinist who has multiple sclerosis and knows that any minute she might have an attack on stage, which would cause impossibly tragic notoriety, so she finally decides to quit. But before that decision is made, a lot of soul searching, and attempts at changing life styles occur. While she is coming to terms with her own personal demons, the rest of her life is also falling apart. Her husband has a younger mistress, her favorite pupil decides to quit and go to the U.S. to tour and other things.

This movie was made back in 1986, but I never heard of it. It must have been during some dark time in Julie's life because at the same time, she filmed That's Life, with Jack Lemmon, another tear jerker. I did see that one though and cried through it for her and what a self absorbent family she had. That's LIfe, however, made me realize that Julie wasn't just a great singer of songs and music and dance gal, but she could really act as well. Realizing that she couldn't very well sing forever, I'm glad she took a shot at dramatic acting, because she is amazing at it. Here's a lady who was able to switch from musical comedy to drama quite well. It may have been Blake Edward's influence, I don't know, but whatever, I'm glad we have a host of dramatic roles from Julie Andrews from the last 30 years, and now she's going into all of these voice-overs, in addition to being the queen of unheard of countries. She's beautiful and I hope she keeps going for a while yet to come.
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