The Piano (1993) on Netflix
A mute Scottish woman, Ada, sails with her daughter Flora to colonial New Zealand for an arranged marriage. Her piano, left on a beach, leads neighbor George Baines to offer a trade.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.5/10102,541 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes90%
Trailer
Plot summary
In the mid-nineteenth century, Ada McGrath, a Scottish woman who has not spoken since childhood, travels to colonial New Zealand with her young daughter Flora for a marriage arranged with settler Alisdair Stewart. Flora serves as interpreter for the sign language her mother uses. The ship's crew leaves Ada's handcrafted piano stranded on the beach, and Alisdair refuses to return for it, telling her that everyone must make sacrifices. Wanting the instrument back, Ada turns to Alisdair's neighbor George Baines, a retired sailor who has taken up Māori customs including facial tattoos. He is entranced by her playing. George proposes handing over land he has long wanted in exchange for the piano, plus lessons given by Ada. Alisdair accepts, unaware of George's attraction to her. Ada, furious at the terms, agrees to trade lessons for piano keys.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Piano (1993)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Open auditions were held for girls aged 9 to 13, focusing on girls small enough to be believable as Ada's daughter, since Hunter is relatively short at 157 cm tall; Anna Paquin won the role of Flora over 5,000 other girls.
- Sigourney Weaver was Jane Campion's first choice but was not interested, and Jennifer Jason Leigh was considered but had a conflict with Rush; Isabelle Huppert met Campion and had vintage period-style photographs taken of her as Ada, later saying she regretted not fighting for the role as Holly Hunter did.
- Hunter collaborated extensively with Pierce College sign language instructor Darlene Allen Wittman, blending American, British, Russian, Indigenous and some unique new signs into an amalgamated sign language for Ada, and she took piano lessons to authentically play the compositions Michael Nyman wrote.
- At the Cannes Film Festival the film won the Palme d'Or, sharing it with Chen Kaige's Farewell My Concubine, with Campion becoming the first woman to win the honor as well as the first filmmaker from New Zealand to achieve this.
- At age 11, Anna Paquin became the second youngest competitive Academy Award winner, behind only Tatum O'Neal, who won in 1973.
- In 2026, Jane Campion acknowledged that disgraced former Miramax head Harvey Weinstein led a "brilliant" campaign which greatly aided the film in winning numerous awards.
- The film was originally titled The Piano Lesson, but the filmmakers could not obtain the rights to use that title because of the American play of the same name, and it was changed to The Piano.
SPOILER
In July 2013, Campion revealed that she had originally intended the main character to drown in the sea after going overboard after her piano.
