Music Box
1989 Drama / Thriller
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Credits
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Summary
When she learns that her father, Mike Laszlo, has been indicted for alleged war crimes
during World War II, high-flying lawyer Ann Talbot resolves to defend him. According
to the Prosecution, Laszlo was not an insignificant office worker before he fled from
his native Hungary in the 1940s, but a willing instrument of the Nazi war machine, killing
Jews and gypsies with a psychopathic bloodlust. To Ann Talbot, this account of her
father’s past is ludicrous: how could the man she has known and loved all her life
possibly be such an ogre? Convinced of her father’s innocence, she skilfully
attacks the case for the prosecution. But then she discovers that her father has
been blackmailed for several years. On a visit to Hungary to receive testimony from
another prosecution witness, she discovers the truth of her father’s past in an
antique music box…
Review
Although less substantial and stylish than Costa-Gavras’ previous political dramas,
Music Box manages to be a compelling film, thanks
mainly to a star performance from Jessica Lange. The film’s deliberately slow,
understated approach allows its dramatic conclusion to have the maximum emotional impact,
showing the folly of unconditional love with an almost callous brutality yet also a harrowing
poignant humanity. As a courtroom drama, Music
Box is not a bad offering, although its overly restrained direction and scripting
denies it the greater impact is might have made. The courtroom scenes don’t
quite convey the horror of the alleged atrocities and so much is left to Jessica Lange
to generate the drama and sense of emotional conflict. Although the film is not
Costa-Gavras’ best, it is worth seeing, and not just on account of Ms Lange’s
near-Oscar winning performance. The film also gives some appreciation of the horrendously
complex nature of belated war crime trials, where vested political interests and the overwhelming
desire for justice can so easily result in an unsafe conviction.
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