All the guests in the retirement home are suffering in varying degrees from the ailments that old age can bring, but continue to be engaged in their former professions, including lecturing and introducing young people to music.

Finances threaten closure of the home, but proceeds from a yearly gala concert on Verdi's birthday hold hope for a continuation.

Reg, Wilf and Cissy were in the cast of a very highly rated recording of the opera Rigoletto, which includes a famous quartet for soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and baritone ("Bella figlia dell'amore").

Reg is shocked to find his former wife Jean Horton to be the missing soprano of the Rigoletto recording, learning that she lives at Beecham House.

Reg is sceptical but agrees, having overcome his issues and problems with Jean living at the home and being in such close daily proximity.

The group prepares for their performance, but moments before their curtain call, Cissy gets very confused and attempts to walk out the door, saying that she has to go back to her family.

Dustin Hoffman said that Harwood was inspired by the 1984 documentary Tosca's Kiss (about the world's first nursing home for retired opera singers, founded in 1896 in Milan by composer Giuseppe Verdi) to write the original play on which the film is based.

[citation needed] Quartet was also screened at Cardiff's Cineworld complex on Thursday, 6 December 2012, at an event arranged by the Rotary Club of Blackwood, with proceeds donated to charities.

The website's consensus reads: "It's sweet, gentle, and predictable to a fault, but Dustin Hoffman's affectionate direction and the talented cast's amiable charm make Quartet too difficult to resist.

[6] Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the movie a "B", writing:This lulling inspirational fantasy/comedy in the key of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel offers aging, cultured Englishfolk (and one randy Scot, played by Billy Connolly) living out their golden years in a beautifully maintained residence for retired musicians.

Every vista suggests that this gracious oldies' home is situated down the road from Downton Abbey, and every scene insists that real physical or mental infirmity belongs in some other picture.