‘Hilary and Jackie’ Opens to a Chorus of Criticism in Britain

If the adage holds true that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, the producers of “Hilary and Jackie” will be mightily relieved.

The film, a biopic of the legendary virtuoso English cellist Jacqueline du Pre (played by Emily Watson), opened in Britain last weekend to an extraordinary chorus of disapproval--some of it from the musical world’s most revered names.

Based on a memoir by Du Pre’s older sister Hilary (played by Rachel Griffiths in the film) and their brother Piers, the movie includes a controversial sequence in which a distraught Jacqueline sleeps with Hilary’s husband--with Hilary’s permission. Hilary du Pre, in the course of several interviews, has insisted her sister (who died of multiple sclerosis in 1987) would have loved the film.

But its opponents complain it portrays Jacqueline as manipulated and self-centered. Internationally renowned musicians including Yehudi Menuhin, Itzhak Perlman, Mstislav Rostropovich and Pinchas Zukerman joined forces to protest the film in a letter to the London Times, claiming its depiction of its main character is “not the Jacqueline du Pre we knew.”

The most vehement opposition to the film has come from cellist Julian Lloyd Webber (brother of composer Andrew). He has related how Du Pre’s playing inspired him to start playing the cello; he has called “Hilary and Jackie” an “ugly” film, and says of Hilary and Piers du Pre: “[They] seem determined to wreak the ultimate revenge on their sister by discrediting her while she lies, unable to answer back, in her grave. They have no right to tarnish her memory for the many who love her.”

Yet in turn Lloyd Webber has been accused of creating a ruckus over the film for his own ends. He has composed a tribute to Jacqueline du Pre, “Jackie’s Song,” which had its world premiere in London Jan. 10, only 12 days before the film’s British opening. A CD of the work was also released this month.

With all these bitter disputes being aired in the British media, the film’s opening almost came as an anticlimax. Reviews by national film critics were mixed, with a majority favorably disposed toward “Hilary and Jackie.” (The film received mostly good notices in the U.S. as well.)

The opening weekend’s box-office returns were good, if not spectacular. “Hilary and Jackie” grossed 92,000 pounds--about $152,000--on only 13 screens for a respectable per-screen average of 7,096 pounds or about $11,700. The film will go much wider on Feb. 12, and play on 150 screens--a high number for a British-made film.

“We’re happy, but not smug,” said Charles McDonald, the film’s London-based publicist. He added that everyone connected with the film was taken aback by the anger it spawned, especially in the week before its British opening. “The volume and the vehemence of the coverage took us all by surprise,” McDonald noted.

Film industry observers here believe the very public battle has worked both for and against “Hilary and Jackie.” The film’s core audience would seem to be older and slightly conservative, skewing toward women and encompassing classical music enthusiasts. Some of these people might have been turned off by the film’s overtones of sexual scandal. Yet that same element in the film may tempt younger, less shockable audiences who might otherwise have passed on it.

The controversy has even extended to a record company war. EMI, which refused to cooperate with the film, hopes its 1965 recording by Du Pre of Elgar’s cello concerto will outsell the soundtrack, and is rushing CDs into record stores.

Meanwhile, Sony allowed clips of its 1970 recording of the concerto by Du Pre to be used by the filmmakers, and has re-released the whole concerto on the soundtrack CD, along with the film’s original score. But the EMI version, not the soundtrack, entered Britain’s classical music charts before the film’s release.