It is almost an inevitability that biopics of artistic icons will fail to do them justice. The whole reason these figures are worth celebrating to begin with is their uniqueness — their peerless brilliance or their shocking originality. By definition, the vast majority of other (even very skilled) storytellers attempting to memorialize them cannot measure up.
The sly twist of Amadeus, then, is that it does not pretend otherwise. The impossibility of grasping, let alone explaining, true genius is built into the very premise of the Starz drama, framed as the end-of-life confession of a good composer (Paul Bettany’s Antonio Salieri) condemned to exist in the shadow of a great one (Will Sharpe’s Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart). If it comes nowhere close to achieving the immortal transcendence of the latter, its understanding of how maddening that failure can be is thrilling on its own terms.
Amadeus
The Bottom Line
A thrilling symphony of genius and jealousy.
