'Four Minutes' tells the story of the clash of two women of iron will: one a convicted murderer, the other an aged piano teacher. There's a lot to like in the premise, but the film never completely transcends it; and there's a certain quantity of pointless time-shifting (two scenes shown in a scrambled chronological order) which failed, from my perspective, to add anything to the film. What I did like was the absence of easy answers: two damaged people connect, but only a little, and never well enough to wholly bridge the gulf between them; and although there's a conventional, contest-focused storyline, the film is never just about who will win, even if it never truly reaches the depths it aspires to.
Review of Four Minutes
