AllMovie

Fans of classical music may enjoy this film despite its pedestrian love story and Richard Dreyfuss' acting. (His performance earned him a 1981 Razzie nomination for worst actor of the year.) What makes The Competition worth watching -- or at least listening to -- is the piano music. It soars. Daniel Pollack, who debuted at age nine with the New York Philharmonic in a performance of Chopin's piano Concerto No. 1, plays for Amy Irving's character, Heidi Schoonover. Chester B. Swiatkowski, a Polish-American pianist with considerable technical skill, plays for Dreyfuss' character, Paul Dietrich. The production gives plenty of ear time to the selections, which include Beethoven's Concerto No. 5 and Prokofiev's Concerto No. 3. Thanks to months of practice at the keyboard, Dreyfuss and Irving convincingly synchronize their finger movements to the music. Consequently, viewers see what appears to be real virtuoso performances, with judges listening for appropriately executed crescendos and diminuendos or for evidence of rubato. The story has something of the quality of a dignified barroom brawl (last one standing wins) or an episode of the popular TV series Survivor. Between cadenzas, Schoonover and Dietrich fall in love, leaving viewers wondering whether either of them will deliberately play badly to throw victory to the other. Sam Wanamaker and Lee Remick give yeomanly supporting performances as orchestra conductor Andrew Erskine and Schoonover's teacher, Greta Vandemann.