Movie Mama Rating: 1 out of 5
Starring: Freddie Highmore, Robin Williams, Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Terrence Howard
Directed By: Kirsten Sheridan
Running Time: 1 hr. 53 min.
MPAA Rating: PG for some thematic elements, mild violence and language.
Evan Taylor (Freddie Highmore) is an 11-year-old boy who has spent his entire life in an orphanage. Although he never knew his mother and father, he believes he has a cosmic connection to them through music. He runs away to New York City, hoping that the music he hears in his head will help him find his parents. There he discovers that he is a musical prodigy and dons a new, more appropriate stage name: August Rush. Meanwhile, his parents are doing some searching of their own. His mother, a gifted cellist, Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell), has just found out that after 11 years, the child she thought had died had actually been given up for adoption by her controlling father. She makes her way to New York to visit Child Protective Services in an effort to find her son. Evan’s father, Louis (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a rock-n-roll singer, doesn’t even know that Lyla got pregnant. All he knows is that he fell in love with his one-night-stand, and although she promised to meet him the very next day, he never saw her again. Heartbroken, he spent the next 11 years trying to move on; but in the end, he finds his way to New York as he too, follows the music.
August Rush is nothing more than schmaltzy, overly dramatic, romanticist drivel with an incredibly unrealistic plot. While in New York, August often wanders around alone (sometimes walking right out into traffic), stopping every now and then to close his eyes so he can “listen” to the music all around him: car honks, basketball dribbles, traffic noise, footsteps, etc. It’s not really music, just sounds that he perceives as music. It’s this “music” that supernaturally (and laughingly) leads him to his unite with his parents. And that’s not all. In the city, August bounces around from an abandoned theater where dozens of homeless, musical children live under the guardianship of Wizard (Robin Williams) to an old, gospel church where he learns to compose music and play the organ during the span of one day to enrolling in Julliard and writing his own rhapsody–all in a fashion akin to Oliver Twist…a very sappy rendition of a timeless classic.
The cinematography is distracting, and I could actually feel my I.Q. dropping with every passing minute. The characters are stereotypical, and their development is non-existent. The entire cast disappointed me–even Robin Williams, although I tend to believe it wasn’t quite his fault due to the terrible script. The lines are trite and predictable; Keri Russell has strange, jerky movements and expressions which reminded me of a timid bird, and even though 11 years go by, Lyla and Louis haven’t aged a bit.
PROS
The best part of the film is when any of the characters pick up an instrument and play–especially August, who has a very cool, original style of slap-strumming. You can almost get lost in watching him play if you don’t look too closely at the fingers on the close-up shots. They are definitely not the fingers of an 11-year-old, though I’ll give the filmmakers a bit of leeway in that area.
It’s a relatively clean film with most of the inappropriate parts left to the audience’s imagination off screen.
Other than that, I guess the only other positive note is the constant persistence of Lyla to find her son. It’s a touching element–a mother just finding out her son is alive and searching frantically for him–despite the shallow plot.
CONS
Some parents might be offended by the way this film glorifies Lyla and Louis’ one-night-stand. Lyla even refers to it as “the most wonderful night of her life.” I find it hard to believe that the most wonderful night of her life was sleeping with a complete stranger on a dirty, old couch on a rooftop in New York. But either way, Lyla and Louis aren’t very good role models for our kids, nor do they ever redeem themselves or apologize for their irresponsibility.
A few other areas of note are: a brief glimpse of a couple making out in a hallway; the use of mild curse words; the fact that Evan/August runs away from the orphanage and opens himself up to a world of danger; and the dark, unsettling character of Wizard, including one scene that might frighten young children.
OVERALL
I have to be honest–I absolutely loathed this film. In fact, while watching it, I distinctly heard a faint screeching in the back of my mind…like fingernails on a chalk board. Oh wait, maybe that was just “the music.”
By: Megan P.
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?August-Rush—Family-Movie-Review&id=1099726
keyword: august rush
Megan is the staff family movie reviewer for pluggedinparents.com. For more parenting articles on health and safety, nutrition, baby, money and tech, family life, pets, and movie reviews, visit pluggedinparents.com today!
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