I'm always excited to see a production of sumptuous costume drama. It's notoriously expensive and difficult to pull off, and in the time of cheap shortcuts everywhere, 'Tchaikovsky's Wife' stands out for its consistency and authenticity of its style and production design.
Drama-wise, as the title implies, it's almost all about Antonia, the wife's perspective... and her perspective is extremely simple - her obsession for Tchaikovsky. The 2 and a half hour run is all about her anxious and gradually more manic and bitter obsession, and you can imagine it wouldn't be a very happy and even somewhat exhausting journey.
Tchaikosky as a character largely serves as her object of obsession rather than a full multi-dimesional person. He is definitely portrayed as rather cruel and frivolous (and real Tchaikovsky indeed was when it came to his wife), but he's also not depicted as a simplistic evil - there are fleeting moment of his human depth as in the 2 photo session scenes. And I can understand why they avoided using Tchaikovsky's music much (apart from Antonia playing the melody of the famous letter aria from 'Onegin'). The beautiful and emotional music of Tchaikovsky, the representation of his genius, would have shifted the weight of the film from Antonia to Tchaikovsky.
Despite it being a grueling journey, it didn't feel boring thanks to the sumptuous production design and rather theatrical style. From the very first scene of the dead Tchaikovsky rising to taunt Antonia for daring to come to his funeral, one should understand this was not to be a conservative and realistic depiction of drama. Yet there definitely were some scenes that rather stood out like a sore thumb - Antonia presented with a bunch of muscular young men (or indeed more dramatic reprise of it at the end) or her lover masturbating himself in his blood stained death bed feel the director being overtly ambitious.
Overall I appreciated the film... though I'm not sure if I want to go through it the second time.
