The Musicians (Les Musiciens) Film Review

With some wonderful music and beautiful scenery, The Musicians (Les Musiciens) is a delightful comedy about classical music.

The string quartet is made up of concertmaster George Massaro (Mathieu Spinosi), young musician and social media star Apolline Dessartre (Emma Ravier), blind violinist Peter Nicolescu (Daniel Garlitsky), and the latter’s former girlfriend Lise Carvalho (Marie Vialle). The four perform, with some initial struggles, under the guidance of Charlie Beaumont (Frédéric Pierrot), the composer that Astrid’s father has chosen for this concert.

The music itself is very much a protagonist in the film, perhaps even more than the titular musicians. The dream of the final performance, and the search for the artists  who will undertake this ambitious project, are the driving force behind the whole plot. As the audience listens to rehearsal after rehearsal, we get to know the score the musicians are trying – and failing, at times – to perform,  and appreciate it in all its musical nuances.

The fact that all four actors are classically trained musicians not only helps the realism of the film, but also adds to the beauty of the movie. With a story that’s so focused on the filmed performance, being able to witness the beautiful score and having it played before our eyes by the actual cast members feels like an immense privilege and honour. Through the various – and sometimes painful – rehearsals that the audience gets to see, Gregoire Hetzel’s music comes to life. By the end of The Musicians, it is not just a character in its own right, but it also tells a story of its own through the final performance.

The premise of the film is incredibly fascinating. It’s very rare to see classical music on the big screen, let alone with such a pivotal role in the narrative. Naturally, it feels very refreshing to see a movie give so much space to the music by truly letting us into the musicians’ attempts to learn the score, their rehearsals process, and all the preparation that goes into the performance at the end of the film. The Musicians never shies away from showing us the less glamorous and more arduous aspects of the job. 

While the music itself is explored very thoroughly, the same cannot be said for the other characters in the film. We don’t really know anything about any of them outside of the musical world. We know what instruments they play and about their love of music, but who are they as people? The Musicians never answers this question, nor does it ask it.. There’s a lot more that the film could have done by further touching on the relationships between the main characters of the film, but these end up only functioning as fillers for the narrative rather than actual plot points for the characters’ development. 

As a result, I could not really feel the stakes in the film. Of course, it is immediately clear how important this is to Astrid, but something is missing. We hear very little of her relationship with her father, the love for music we can only assume they shared, or why her father had embarked on this mission in the first place. If The Musicians had explored these elements a little bit more, this story would have been a lot more impactful. This would have allowed the audience to feel a sense of personal connection to the music we hear and the narrative we see unfolding during the course of the movie.

The Musicians (Les Musiciens) will be released in theaters in New York on August 8, 2025 and in Los Angeles on August 15, followed by more cities nationwide.