Both sisters were musicians from an early age. At first, Hilary was the star with her flute performances winning awards at school concerts. Jackie, feeling somewhat left out, worked harder and harder at her cello playing until she was literally playing it in her mind every waking moment. From early childhood, the girls' mother had taught them to combine music and dance such that it became almost impossible to separate the two. Whereas Hilary was scolded by her music teacher for "jigging about too much" while playing, Jackie was encouraged. She developed such a passion for the cello and played it with such feeling that by the age of nine she had stolen the limelight from her sister, who then began to lose her ability to play the flute, and eventually gave it up altogether.
The relationship between Hilary and Jackie was certainly no ordinary one, as can be seen during the part of the film that's set in Hilary's country home. As before, to reveal the plot would spoil the film, but suffice it to say that there was definitely some very unhealthy and disturbing psychology going on.
Such was the emotion in Jackie's performances that she seemed to become one with the cello. It seems as though she used it to communicate her feelings to the outside world, not being quite as adept as most people in ordinary social interactions. Indeed, when she met her future husband, the renowned pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim (played by James Frain), it was not through her conversation that she really spoke to him, but through her cello.
What I like most about the film was the way it showed the same period of time twice, once from Hilary's point of view, and then again from Jackie's. It really brought home to me how your point of view can completely change your perception of a situation. If the film had only shown Hilary's viewpoint, I would have come away with a totally different opinion of Jackie. Only by seeing Jackie's side could I understand her pain as she trudged through endless tours in countries where she couldn't even speak enough of the language to get her clothes washed.
This film is, I think, a true masterpiece, one of those rare ones that takes your breath away and leaves you staring at the credits in a daze. Marks out of ten couldn't possibly do it justice.