The film stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken, Catherine Keener, Mark Ivanir and Imogen Poots.

131, the film follows the world-renowned Fugue String Quartet after its cellist Peter Mitchell (Walken) is diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

As the Fugue String quartet approaches its 25th anniversary, the onset of a debilitating illness to cellist Peter Mitchell (Christopher Walken), forces its members to reevaluate their relationships.

Further complicating matters, their daughter, Alexandra (Imogen Poots), begins an affair with Daniel, whom her mother once pined for.

[5] The film features members of the Brooklyn Parkinson's Group in the scene where Peter is in a physical therapy class.

The scene in which Peter Mitchell tells his music class an anecdote about meeting Pablo Casals is adapted from an anecdote found in Cellist, the autobiography of cellist Gregor Piatigorsky; the circumstances of the encounter and the pieces played are changed in the film, but Casals's words are essentially identical to those recounted by Piatigorsky.

[7] The subway poetry the Little Girl reads from when Juliette visits Peter is from Ogden Nash's poem "Old Men".

[9] It was a New York Times Critics' Pick which Stephen Holden called a magnificently acted, "deeply felt, musically savvy film".