Product Details

• Actors: Saffron Burrows, Isaach De Bankolé, Paz de la Huerta, Mia Kucan, Adam Trese
• Directors: Amy Redford
• Writers: Amos Poe
• Producers: Amy Redford, Amos Poe, Andy Emilio, Bob Jason, Brad Zions
• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
• DVD Release Date: February 10, 2009
• Run Time: 95 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001L28J2M
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #16,364 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Guitar" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Actress Amy Redford's directorial debut, The Guitar, pivots on a potentially risible concept made palatable by a charismatic cast: an attractive woman discovers she's dying, maxes out her credit cards, and indulges her every materialistic and sexual whim (and yes, Amy is Robert Redford's daughter). But what sounds like an art-house version of The Bucket List offers its own unique charms--at least for those who don't take it too literally. Moments after Melody Wilder (Saffron Burrows) finds out she has inoperable throat cancer, she loses her job and her boyfriend, leaving her alone and broke in New York City (Janeane Garofolo gives her the bad medical news). So, she abandons her basement apartment and moves into a cavernous loft, where she orders fancy outfits and furnishings, throws the refuse out the windows, and dines on take-out while dreaming of the red Stratocaster she coveted as a girl. Soon Mel’s life revolves around her new stuff and the kindly individuals who deliver it to her: the married Roscoe (Isaach de Bankolé) and engaged Cookie (Paz de la Huerta). All the while, the willowy Burrows, much like Ali McGraw in Love Story, makes listless and pale seem more glamorous than sad, but just as tragedy gives way to fantasy, Mel returns to reality once her credit runs out. As a how-to guide for the terminally ill, The Guitar won't win many points, but as a metaphor for spiritual emptiness, it gets the job done. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Product Description

A story of one woman's spiritual, emotional and creative transformation. One morning, "mouse-Burger" Melody, "Mel" Wilder is diagnosed with a terminal illness, fired from her thankless job and abandoned by her boyfriend. With nothing left to lose, given 2 months to live, she spends her entire life's savings renting an empty palatial loft in the Village. Thinking she'll never have to pay the piper, she lives off her credit cards, fills the loft with the fanciest products, sensually engages both the parcel delivery man and a pizza delivery girl and teaches herself to play the electric guitar she's craved since childhood. These life affirming experiences transform her irrevocably.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Saffron Burrows Soars, December 2, 2008

By	Joel S. Schneider (San Francisco) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

I saw "The Guitar" at a film festival and I was very moved by the experience. The central character goes through a transformation when confronting her mortality that anyone who's open to the experience will find incredibly absorbing. Don't be put off by the talk of going on a spending spree - that is NOT what the film is actually about (its not a validation of wanton materialism) - the buying of material objects is just part of a process that the character, Melody, needs to go through in order to discover what's important. For any connoisseur of the beautiful, talented Saffron Burrows this film is a wonderful gift. She delivers a deeply felt and brilliant performance that dominates the screen in almost every scene. Its hard to imagine anyone else being able to animate this challenging role the way Ms Burrows has - she performs magic. There are whole scenes where she is alone on the screen and has no dialogue and sometimes not even any clothes. Its quite primal. Later she explores her sexuality and discovers more of what she's been missing and has a lot of fun, too. I don't want to give too much away but I will state that the film is much like a parable and has an ending that might startle some - either positively or negatively. Many people will love this film and I can also imagine some disliking it - it depends on your perspective. In my case, I thought about "The Guitar" for days after I saw it - it really resonated.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars When your tomorrows were all yesterday, March 2, 2009

By	TropicalMinnesota - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

(What's this?)

A haunting film about a woman reacting to the news that she has terminal cancer, she has been downsized from her job, and her boyfriend "needs space", and all events occur just a few hours. Mel rents an expensive penthouse apartment (with a very short term lease) and goes catalog shopping. Soon her empty apartment is filled with the finest of furnishings. Her former vegetarian diet is overthrown for lavish take-out food, or actually delivery food in her case as she does not leave the apartment. As her empty apartment fills, so does her life. She begins affairs with two delivery people and buys her childhood passion, a red guitar.

Eventually Mel's life empties out again, but she is left with the greatest posession; knowing what is important to her. Although there are a few things in this movie that seemed unreralistic to me, they involved her playing the guitar. She seemed to learn awfully fast, but more disturbing to me was to see her playing in her apartment with several huge amps but no complaining neighbors.

This is the kind of movie that I think needs a couple of viewings before it is fully appreciated. I plan to watch it again in a week or two. It may make me raise or lower my opinion by a star, but I look forward to seeing it again.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Realization, February 27, 2009

By	D. Roberts "Hadrian12" (Battle Creek, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

(What's this?)

This is one of the most unique films I've seen in awhile. It's a somewhat strange tale, and yet hauntingly familiar. The story centers around Melody (Saffron Burrows). Melody is an every-day woman, a white collar worker, a plain-Jane with an elegant body. She can't seem to catch a break (on that issue, it seems that she & I have a lot in common!). In 1 day she finds out that she is terminally ill, she loses her job & her boyfriend dumps her.

All of this leads her to start living an extravagent life. She rents a loft with a view in New York and uses her credit cards to buy brand new furnishings. Obviously, she has no worries about ever paying her credit card bills as she doesn't plan to be around more than 8 weeks. Her confrontation with her own mortality causes her to unleash her Dionysian side!

Among the many things she buys via her credit is a red guitar that she dreamed about owning as a little girl. She finds to her astonishment that she has a real knack for being a musician. Almost accidentally, new avenues of joy open up to her as she realizes that she is a bi-sexual who enjoys threesomes. Through it all, the red guitar remains her most faithful companion.

This is a film which one does not so much watch as one lives. We viacariously suffer with Melody and her string of bad luck. Ironically, when she comes to grip with her own demise, her life ostensibly becomes much more exciting than it was before she was diagnosed w/cancer. This seems to coincide with Hedigger's motif of "being-towards-death" in which one truly treasures what it is to be alive. When we realize that our tomorrows are limited is when we truly enjoy the fruits of this life. Or, as Rilke put it, to be alive = to live dangerously.

This is a quaint movie, but my gut-feeling is that there are many people out there who are apt to relate to it. The enigmatic & sometimes subtle Fender Stratocaster soundtrack gives the movie a surreal feeling to it. This is a film which is at once depressing, sensual and uplifting. It's very rare that those three things can be said about 1 movie, but this is an exception. So, if you're interested in a movie that is more philosophical than most, play the Guitar! Carpe Diem!