Vitus

Pronounced VEE-tus, is a Swiss boy who we first see at age 6, and later at age 12. He is a prodigy in more ways than one … actually too many ways to be strictly believable, but this is a feel-good movie, and if I like the people, plausibility doesn’t matter so much to me. He lives with his parents in Geneva, where he annoys his teachers by being a lot smarter than they are. But his intellectual talents, which are considerable, pale beside his accomplishments at the piano. His mother is pushy without being too horrible about it, but his real interests lie elsewhere. He wants to be an ordinary boy, and comes up with a difficult but brilliant scheme to seem like one. We enjoyed this movie. Both the boys who play Vitus are real piano prodigies, so we actually see their hands on the keys as they perform some pieces so difficult I don’t even like to think about them, culminating in Beethoven’s “Emperor” concerto.