Pic gets off to a maudlin start with young Anna Holtz (Diane Kruger, pretty good throughout) bidding a tearful farewell to Beethoven (Ed Harris) on his deathbed.

Action then flashes back to 1824, when well-born Anna arrives in Vienna, and soon finds herself employed by Beethoven himself, whom she venerates deeply, to be his copyist, which means transcribing his messy scribbles onto clean, readable pages.

Anna has ambitions of her own to be a composer, at which Beethoven, by this point quite profoundly deaf and exceedingly cantankerous and rude, scoffs. Dialogue has him recycling Dr. Johnson's well-known quote about women preachers, comparing a woman composing to a dog walking on its hind legs: "It's not done well, but you're surprised to see it done at all."

However, her intelligence, passion for music and beauty (she's played, after all, by the actress who incarnated Helen in "Troy") gradually win him over. Anna becomes more of a collaborator than a mere copyist as they race to finish the Ninth Symphony and restore his failing reputation.

Although there's a certain sexual chemistry between them, Anna and Beethoven's relationship is chaste. She's engaged to budding engineer Martin Bauer (Matthew Goode, "Match Point"), who's surprisingly modern in his support of Anna's career, while the big love of Beethoven's life is his shiftless nephew Karl (British newcommer Joe Anderson, making a strong impression here). However, the script never quite fleshes out Anna enough to convince why she should have enough moxie to defy the gender restrictions of her era.

Otherwise, the screenplay by Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson (who partnered to write both "Nixon" and "Ali") is fine, has its fair share of snappy lines (most of them given to Harris), and certainly shows off a lot of research about Beethoven and his music. It gets across, for instance, what was so radical at the time about his work, especially the Ninth and the late string quartets, in their departure from traditional form.

On the debit side, although she demonstrates a good ear for musical performance, Holland's helming is lackluster, and too-indulgent of Harris, who storms about quite a lot like a bear with sore paw, shaking his long-locked wig. Last act feels dragged out after the high of the symphonic perf, and the cutting of a reel would feel like no great loss.

Blending of studio sets and Hungarian locations is seamless, creating a credibly wintry vision of early 19th century Vienna, lensed nicely with a muted palette from d.p. Ashley Rowe. Rest of the tech credits are pro.
 
Camera (Technicolor), Ashley Rowe; editor, Alex Mackie; music, Maggie Rodford; production designer, Caroline Amies; costume designer, Jany Temime; sound (Dolby Digital), Simon Hayes. Reviewed at Toronto Film Festival (Contemporary World Cinema), Sept. 9, 2006. (Also in San Sebastian Film Festival -- competing) Running time: 103 MIN.