Post by BIGFANBOY on Nov 21, 2007 7:50:04 GMT -5
AUGUST RUSH
Review by Gary Dean Murray
August Rush isn’t a concert I was at this summer…but actually it was…I digress…
August Rush is a new flick about the power of music on life and love. While it has grand themes and ideas, the physical execution is less than to be desired.
Evan (Freddie Highmore) is a kid in an orphanage, waiting for his parents to come and save him. He is obsessed with music as much as he is obsessed with finding the people who conceived him. After being picked on by older boys and meeting with a NYC social worker, our little hero decides to take fate in his own hands, going into the big city to look for his folks. He heads to NYC.
Then the film jumps back eleven years to a NYC night. Keri Russell is a young cellist with a very promising future. She lives and breathes music. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is is the lead singer of an Irish rock band. He lives and breathes music. Well one night these two meet at a party and they wake up together. Since they are soul mates, both make a promise to meet at the Washington Square archway the next day. Well, circumstance fall apart and the connection doesn’t happen. It is months later with her pregnant and him pining away for her. An accident happens and she is told she lost the baby.
That baby is our eleven year-old Evan. We also find that the guitarist has given up on music and the cellist has gone from performer to teacher who never plays. The kid is not alone in the city for long. He befriends a young guitarist, who plays on the streets for tips. The Wizard (Robin Williams) mentors the little six-string slinger, showing him all the tricks of getting cash from passer-bys. The Wizard is the man who played in the archway the night Evan’s parents made him. Keeping a bunch of kids hidden from the authorities, the Wizard teaches the young ones music so the kids can play on street corners, making money for the collective. The Wizard knows the true power of music and how it affects people.
When Evan gets a hold of a guitar, he instantly understands how to play it. This stuns everyone. The Wizard knows the next Mozart when he sees one. All Evan wants to do is play music and find his folks, but he does give himself the new name August Rush. The Wizard’s eyes fill with money signs whenever he looks at the kid. Circumstances fall into place where both of the birth parents are back in NYC searching for something. The journeys of these three to finding each other are what August Rush is about.
There are so many things here that go past the willing suspension of disbelief. In one scene a character is whistling and Evan asks him what he is doing. Evan is eleven and has never heard someone whistle? Also, he is a kid who hears the music in everything but he has never been around any musical instruments at all. A true musical prodigy would have crafted instruments out of boxes and rubber bands. If he were truly that driven, the kid would have made music from anything. The social worker hears Evan quote how many days he has been looking for his parents. Later Keri Russell’s character does the exact thing and the social worker doesn’t notice or put two and two together. And the biggest suspension is that no one would adopt a white infant.
But, I loved seeing Keri Russell on the Silver Screen again. Between this role and Waitress, she is proving that she has the skills and talents to be a major star. Here she isn’t given much more to do than look pretty and morose, sometimes at the same time. Her cello playing did look convincing. Really can’t say the same things about Jonathan Rhys Meyers. He doesn’t come across as anything more than spoiled and creepy. He never looks convincing on stage. I never believed that he was a musician, must less a man pining for his soul mate.
Speaking of creepy, Robin Williams looks like he is doing a bad Bono impression with the Wizard. He is a half-crazed prophet who still doesn’t understand there is something more important than money. His character jumps all over the place in terms of logical and narrative sense. But Freddie Highmore is showing more and more strength in acting abilities. Though he looks more than lost on the conducting stage, he does have that sparkle in his eyes when playing musical instruments. He gives an air of believably to the role.
Director Kirsten Sheridan does a nice job of keeping this high thread count story connected to a tight tapestry. The scenes where everyone is playing feel the most authentic. I just wish she had gotten more from her actors. And it is hard to believe that it took four people to write this work.
The entire experience of August Rush is very much like Sleepless in Seattle. Both films were about people not being together until the last scenes. Making pining for another long distance work cinematically is a hard feat to accomplish. August Rush accomplishes most of its goals.
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