Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 11, 1994                   TAG: 9403120011
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By WILLIAM GRIMES NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE LOVE AFFAIR IS OVER FOR `THE PIANO'

Something similar seems to be happening to ``The Piano.''

Eight months ago, the film drew critical raves at its premiere at the Cannes International Film Festival and emerged as co-winner of the grand prize.

Ever since, audiences have been fed a high-cholesterol diet rich in superlatives and lovingly garnished with terms like ``startlingly original,'' ``mesmerizing'' and ``enchanting.''

Jane Campion, the director, was described as the greatest thing to come out of New Zealand since the first shipment of kiwi fruit.

Holly Hunter was praised to the skies and beyond for her performance as a mute mail-order bride who travels with her daughter to New Zealand and, in time-honored fashion, makes new and delicious discoveries in the hands of a rough yet sensitive brute. The film, set in the 19th century, was daring, imaginative, beautiful, breathtaking, awesome and not to be missed. It received Oscar nominations for best picture, best actor, best actress, best supporting actress, best director, best screenplay, best cinematography, best costume design and best score. The backlash has begun.

Earlier this week, New York magazine published a list titled ``Seven Reasons to Hate `The Piano.''' (Reason No. 1: ``Little girl vomits on beach.'')

Newsweek reported rising irritation in Hollywood at the fulsomely self-congratulatory advertising campaign for the film, in which Campion, Hunter, and even the film's cinematographer tossed bouquets at each other.

Yuck.

The critics have not yet turned their attention to little Anna Paquin, who plays Hunter's daughter. No problem there. But in commercials for MCI that recall the more adventuresome David Bowie rock videos, she prances playfully while tossing off gnomic New Age phrases about the data superhighway.

``Anytime you have a beloved film, there comes a time when people become sick of it,'' said Cara White, a partner in the public relations company Clein & White, which represents many art films (but not ``The Piano'').

``People are loving it, loving it, and suddenly people are sick of people loving it. I worked on `Sex, Lies and Videotape,' and even on that film it happened.''

Several other theories are current on why anti-``Piano'' sentiment should be surfacing at this particular moment. One theory holds that the initial critical blast that launched the film into the stratosphere simply stunned any doubters into silence.

Slowly, timidly, the naysayers are gathering courage to speak. Most of them appear to be men. Most of them show a certain resistance to metaphor, particularly metaphors that unfurl at a leisurely pace.

``I defy you to tell me what that film is about,'' said one hyper-male Hollywood producer, who, in the time-honored tradition of Hollywood producers discussing someone else's movie, spoke only on condition of anonymity.

``As far as I can tell, it's about a woman who leaves a piano on a beach and then decides to have an affair. You can fall asleep for half an hour in the middle of that movie, which I did, and you will not miss a thing.''

Kurt Andersen, the editor of New York, said that he had brought the film up in conversation from time to time at dinner parties. ``I have discovered, to my happiness, that there are significant numbers of people like me who think it has been highly overpraised,'' he said.

The reluctance to carp, he speculated, may have been political: ``It arrives with this feminist baggage, or presumed feminist message, that probably shuts people up.''

Another theory holds that ``The Piano'' is the kind of intimate film that viewers like to think is a private discovery. When the object of one's affections is enjoyed by everyone - ``The Piano'' has grossed a hefty $31 million at the box office - it begins to lose some of its allure.

Theory No. 3 says that Miramax, the film's distributor, has simply succeeded too brilliantly.

Its marketing campaign has helped turn what might have been a modest art-house hit into a serious moneymaker, but at this point, a word-association test that begins with ``piano'' is likely to produce the response ``overhyped.''

And the hype has a certain dense solemnity to it. ``I liked the film very much,'' said the playwright and screen writer Paul Rudnick. ``But at this point it is beginning to feel a little like a Merchant-Ivory film commissioned on Mount Olympus.''