For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Excellent adaptation.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I saw this movie IMPROMPTUIt was based on George Sand (Judy Davis) - a pseudo name of a novelist woman named Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin who did everything to seek LOVE of a French pianist and composer Frederic Chopin (Hugh Grant).More importantly than the movie the understanding and portrayal of the character of George Sand was intriguing to say the least.She was a tom-boy. She always wore man's clothes. She was outspoken. and smoke continuously - mostly thick cigars. She was determined, individualistic and had her own mind and sense of right/ wrong and decisions. She belonged to somewhat aristocratic lineage. She had her own ways among the elites and rich. Her novels that she wrote in plenty helped her to her repute. She was tiny and dark in stature. Not very physically or facially attractive, but had her own charisma that charmed people. She was a strong lady, and bull-dozed her way with her opinions amongst men. She got married at the age of 16 years with a man much older than her, - got two kids by 18 years and fought a long divorce battle for custody of her children which she won - when such a thing was unimaginable. We are talking of 1804 (210 years back). She called herself - A ROMANTIC REBELLION. She over powered her prey (man) with passionate LOVE. She loved having sex and had multiple affairs with men. A man she put her eyes on - she was determined to lay him down and move on. This time was a pianist of soul-wrenching music composer Frederic Chopin. Among all men - her affair and liaison with Frederic was most passionate and that is why much has been written about it and even songs, lyrics, poems, plays and movies made on them.Frederic Chopin was a shy, timid, feminine person, and his first meeting with George Sand was not at all cordial. Frederic looked down on George condemning her for what she stood for and looked "What an unattractive woman she is. Is she really a woman?" were his exact comments to one of his friend. But George Sand did all things possible to seek Frederic - even wearing women's attire - just to show her feminine side to catch Frederic's attention, and she did. Frederic was head over heels in deep LOVE with her. So much so that he was ready to show his valor to one of George's former LOVER for a gun-fight.Their first "sort-off" trip together with her two children was captured in her autobiographical novel "Un hiver à Majorque" . This is where the movie ends Thanks to Director James Lapine for making the movie and that will keep the character immortal. Judy Davis tries to put some effort in playing the rolOne of the tender scenes in the movie is when Frederic confesses to George about his inability to bring himself to have sex with George, and the most outspoken and passionate George turns into a compassionate LOVER and says to Frederic."It does not matter. It is not necessary to have SEX. I LOVE YOU so much dear. I just want to be with you, near YOU. Spend rest of my life besides YOU. Like that can't we live happily ever after? It is not SEX I seek in YOU, I seek your LOVE. Tell me "Yes"....." Pleased and shy Frederic says "YES" George replies "At last you said YES to my LOVE"The movie apart from this wonderful central character is otherwise okay. Nothing much to write about - though interesting to discover a wonderful feminist icon - the first of its type. - George Sand.Story beyond the movie:As accounts narrate - while their first trip as a couple to the island of Majorque George and Federic had difficulty finding a place to stay at the island, because she was popular and not-so-popular with her ways - traveling with her kids and a men with whom she was not married - was considered a big NO NO - for locals to provide them with a decent accommodation. Frederic had weak constitution and suffered from cough and pneumonia that lead to his death due to tuberculosis. Those last few years George Sands left everything for him and served him as much as she could till the final moments of his death. After Frederic's death - George Sands lived for another 27 years and she had just one more affair - but not as passionate as with Frederic.

I want to add my voice to those who rate this as among the best films ever made. The writer seems to deserve a bit more credit. The whole script is like one of the wonderful, rich piano pieces by Chopin or Liszt -- loaded with details that the actors and director have exploited to the full. Judy Davis is exactly the actress for this part. Her public and intimate scenes are both magnificent. For the first time I realise that she is on the same level as Emma Thompson. Hugh Grant and the others, right down to the bit parts, are all perfect or as near as one can expect. A fine film about art which recognizes the most important thing about art, that it is a reflection of life. On selecting it on TV I suppose I expected a more limited, tear-jerking sort of film and what is now termed a chick-flick -- instead, I found a masterpiece.

As someone who has never been especially fond of classical music or French literature (bite me, Proust), I wasn't exactly drooling when my roommate cajoled me into watching an art film about the romance between Frederic Chopin and George Sand. I wound up laughing my derriere off. First off, ignore the Parisian drag, this is a British sex farce -- witness the cast (Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Judy Davis) and the screwball plot (an aggressive woman who enjoys wearing men's clothes tries to win the heart of a shy, mild-mannered man). Big kudos to director Lapine and screenwriter Sarah Kernochen for treating the famous figures they depict as flesh-and-blood characters, not icons to be revered or reviled. And special reverence must be accorded an absolutely outstanding cast -- Judy Davis is usually pretty damn brilliant, and she does it again here as George Sand. One forgets that Hugh Grant was actually a good actor before he started playing Hugh Grant in all his movies, and he makes Chopin an utterly charming wimp. But this is the movie that made me love Emma Thompson. Hers is a relatively minor role, as a flighty French noblewoman ("stupid, stupid rain!" she curses foolishly at the weather) whom the other characters alternately mock and seduce. But Thompson has the talent to make the Duchess D'Antan both hysterically clueless and touchingly vulnerable -- if your eyes remain dry as you watch the Duchess hang her head after viewing the play Sand writes specifically to insult her, your heart is made of stone. Even the normally annoying Bernadette Peters is pretty decent here. Watch it now.

Impromptu (1991) Starring Judi Davis, Hugh Grant, Bernadette Peters, Ralph Brown, Julian Sands, Mandi Patinkin..Directed By James Lapine Judi Davis is doing what I feel is an Oscar winning performance as French feminist radical cross-dressing author George Sand, who is ultimately a woman who belongs to no one and who lives life to the fullest. She has raised children to be as creative as she is and taken full responsibility for her children as well as for her elderly mother. Bored of the dull life after her divorce from the father of her children, she takes her current lover to the French countryside. There, she is invited by a wealthy hostess to her estate. The drama heightens in a soap opera sort of way when none other than Alfred De Musset the poet and ex-lover of Sand shows up. Her jealous boyfriend, Malfitte, challenges him to a duel. Meanwhile, Sand has fallen for Chopin, who is her polar opposite. While she is free, intense, devil-may-care and very healthy, Chopin is reserved, emotional, sensitive, refined and suffering of bad health with tuberculosis. Their relationship is accurate to truth but not in the way the film depicts. The disaster that happens in the country estate, comedically produced, never really happened. Bernadette Peters delivers a terrific performance as well as the scheming and bitter Marie D'Agoult, whose own marriage to Franz Liszt after having many children with him, including Cosima who later marries Richard Wagner, but that's another story and even another movie. This is a well-done movie with lots of charm and witty scenes. I especially enjoyed the entire portion in the country estate, in which the artist Delacroix, Franz Liszt and Chopin discuss over dinner the existence of God in front of a priest, put on a satirical farce play that ends badly and Sand's adorable children who are always finding some excuse to play with explosives and dynamite.This 1991 movie directed by James Lepine is an absolute charm. It's a romantic comedy, it's a historical piece and a colorful introduction to the music of Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt and the life and writings of Madame George Sand Aurore Dudevant. The romantic comedy is well-written, the actors are doing top-notch performances and the music is heaven. I don't know yet if there is a soundtrack but it's likely there is and it must be beautiful. George Sand was the pen name of the feminist writer Aurore Dudevant who scandalized proper Victorian society in the 19th century by dressing as a man, smoking cigars, abandoning her wealthy and respected husband to live the liberal lifestyle of a bohemian writer of novels. She had many lovers, including Alfred De Musset (who is played in this film by Mandy Patinkin)and her most famous lover, Frederic Chopin. It is their love story that this movie focuses on. Stars Judi Davis as George Sand, Hugh Grant as Chopin and Bernadette Peters as the Countess Marie D'Agoult. I will not give away the answer. But Chopin, though he never married Sand, was greatly influenced by his knowing her and his most productive period of composing piano music came after their heartbreaking separation. Chopin died young of tuberculosis. It's very possible that he loved George Sand but I'm thinking that for Sand, no man was really ever good enough for her. After all, she was the embodiment of the feminist, independent single woman who did'nt really need marriage or love. Great scenes: Judi Davis must woo Hugh Grant as a man wins a woman (gender role switch because Chopin was very frail and feminine) and Sand was more aggressive. "Art does not apologize" is another great line. Great movie, great music.