The true story of two sisters who shared a passion, a madness, and a man.
Overview
The tragic story of world-renowned cellist Jacqueline du Pré, as told from the point of view of her sister, flautist Hilary du Pré-Finzi.
Ratings
Curator score: 6.0/10
IMDb: 7.3/10
Letterboxd: 3.53/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 88%
Metacritic: 78
TMDB: 6.6/10
Director
Anand Tucker
Production
Oxford Films, Film4 Productions
Cast
Emily Watson, Rachel Griffiths, James Frain, David Morrissey, Charles Dance, Celia Imrie, Rupert Penry-Jones, Bill Paterson, Auriol Evans, Keylee Jade Flanders, Nyree Dawn Porter, Maggie McCarthy, Vernon Dobtcheff, Anthony Smee, Delia Lindsay, Linda Spurrier, Nick Haverson, Kika Mirylees, Robert Rietti, Carla Mendonça
Curator Review
Verdict
A sharply acted, emotionally bruising biographical drama that uses sisterhood, rivalry, and artistic obsession to tell a tragic story with unusual intimacy. It’s not a warm crowd-pleaser, but the performances and the dual-perspective structure make it memorable.
Best for
viewers who like prestige biographical dramas
fans of intense sibling relationships on screen
people drawn to classical music stories
audiences who appreciate emotionally difficult character studies
Skip if
you want a straightforward inspirational music biopic
you prefer light or uplifting dramas
you’re sensitive to family conflict and illness-centered tragedy
you dislike films that feel emotionally invasive or morally messy
Overview
Hilary and Jackie is at its best when it treats genius as something intimate, domestic, and corrosive rather than grandly heroic. The film’s strongest passages come from the sisterly dynamic: affection curdling into envy, admiration into resentment, and memory itself becoming a battleground. Emily Watson and Rachel Griffiths give the story its pulse, and the period detail has a soft, almost dreamlike texture that suits the film’s emotional uncertainty.
Worth noting
What makes it linger is the way it refuses easy sentiment. The film is less interested in celebrating Jacqueline du Pré than in asking what it costs the people around her when talent arrives unevenly and publicly. That can make it feel uncomfortable, even harsh, but the discomfort is part of the point. The dual viewpoint structure deepens the tragedy by showing how two sisters can inhabit the same life and still remember it as different wounds.
Bottom line
It’s not an easy recommendation for everyone, especially if you want your music dramas to be uplifting or reverent. But for viewers who value strong performances, adult melodrama, and a biopic that’s willing to be emotionally complicated, it’s a rewarding watch.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Josh Gillam (4★) · 75 likes
SOME MILD SPOILERS AHEAD
The life of famed cellist Jacqueline du Pré (Emily Watson) and her often fraught relationship with sister Hilary (Rachel Griffiths) is the subject of Anand Tucker‘s biographical drama, co-starring James Frain, David Morrissey, Celia Imrie and Charles Dance.
It’s in the dreamlike recreation of the fifties that the film is at its strongest, as Jackie’s rapid success puts a strain on the girls’ relationship and provides the… more
Two Cineasts (4★) · 36 likes
„I’ll play the f...ing triangle, I just want to make music“ (Jacqueline Du Pré)
Hi everybody, this is one of the movies that I strongly connect with my youth. I remember how I was two times in cinema and cried like a baby on both visits. As a fifteen year old boy I already found my cineast heart and I just love the film, even if it’s not full of action. … more
Mark Costello (4.5★) · 31 likes
Not being au fait with the classical music landscape of the 1960s, the name Jacqueline du Pré was known to me only through Anand Tucker’s controversial yet deeply moving biographical drama of her and her sister’s life. Adapted by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the film remains an intimate and often terrifying study of fame, genius and the fractures both can inflict on family.
Celia Imrie and Charles Dance play the doting parents who lavish attention on their eldest, the gifted flautist Hilary,… more
chavel (3★) · 30 likes
The opening twenty minutes or so, with its slight sepia-tint while it embraces the joys as well as rivalries of sisterhood, are so visually beautiful that I was spellbound. It is music-driven as well, with one gifted with the cello and the other gifted with the flute. Will they both become famous in 1960’s England, or just one of them?
Two young actresses play them as girls, until they grow up and Emily Watson is Hilary and Rachel Griffiths is… more
Vivian (1★) · 25 likes
SUCH a sister move to write a book about your more famous/talented sister where you make her out to be some crazy awful bitch that needed you at the end of her life