August Rush (2007)

....all you have to do is listen

Evan is an 11-year-old orphan who hears music in all the things around him. His two passions in life are music and finding his parents, whom he is convinced are looking for him. His parents are actually unaware that he is alive, since his father never knew of his existence and his mother was separated from him by birth, falsely told that he was dead. Not surprisingly his mother is a concert cellist and his father is a singer and guitar player. When Evan runs away from the orphanage, he is taken under the wing of a street hustler (Robin Williams) who gives him a guitar and begins his musical career. There are lots of things in the movie that are very implausible, but this doesn't detract from a lovely story which is a real tearjerker and very satisfying viewing. July 19, 2008

August

August Rush is an exciting and deeply moving story. The music is wonderful--combining rock and classical. The story line is spiritual and thought provoking. It is a story to be viewed several times. The desire to slow down, be still, and see what is around you is penetrating.
I can say, it is one of the best films I have seen in years. July 12, 2008

Love the fast delivery

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Beautiful movie!

This is a wonderful movie... the kind that makes you feel along with the characters.... truly high quality that is so RARE these days. I loved it and my husband did too! Tears to both of our eyes! How rare is THAT??!!! July 10, 2008

August Rush is a very mixed bag.

I have rarely ever felt so positive and negative about a film as I did with this one.

Amazon's synopsis of the film is good, so I'll be brief here with that. The story is a rather shameless retelling of Dickens' Oliver Twist, but rather than finding parental love via handwritten notes like Oliver did, Rush finds it via musical notes. There is even a Fagin-like character who appears to both love and care for the lost boys within his grasp as well as abuse and take advantage of them too. With Little Orphan Annie optimism and spunk, Rush never loses sight of his goal to find his parents through music which is "everywhere."

The film excels when it is not preaching and focuses on the music as the source of love and inspiration. As soon as the music elements of the film stop, so does the audience's interest with its cliche-ridden dialogue, manipulative and unbelievable plot twists, and some hammy acting.

The Hits and Misses of 'August Rush' are as follows for this reviewer (and, yes, I know that I am in the minority with my opinions on this film)

The Hits:
(1) The music is absolutely soaring, inspirational, and delightful to the point where one literally feels like he or she is on a cloud when hearing it and watching the actors perform it.

(2) The cast are nearly all top-notch. Freddie Highmore is outstanding in the lead and you will know him from countless films already in his young career. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Keri Russell as his parents are perfect as is Terrence Howard as a dedicated social worker.

(3) The story's feel good approach, new age philosophy, and "Oliver Twist" plot are both a hit and a miss with this film as they are handled at times very delicately and sincerely (through music mostly), and at other times they are handled too heavily and preachy to be any good at all when it shifts away from music to dialogue and plot emphasis.

The Misses:

(1) The big miss in this film is the casting of Robin Williams as the Fagin-like character. He is just too over-the-top, which he often is lately, and appears to be just phoning in his performance with his trademark antics. He's completely unbelievable in the role and he doesn't seem to even care that he is. He is a complete distraction in the film as well as a total disappointment, and I'm a big Robin Williams fan; however, I find him desperate for attention these days with silly movies and even sillier performances. His acting here reminds one of the kind of performances that big name actors give in films they consider to be in between their big films in which they are the star. It's a small paycheck in between the big paychecks and it keeps their name out there.

(2) The film suffers greatly from being very uneven. The second the music stops, the story spirals into various lame attempts to manipulate the audience. See #3 in my hits for clarification.

(3) The dialogue is hokey and saccrine to the point of being cringe inducing. I felt like I was watching a musical version of The Brady Bunch.

(4) While the star, Freddie Highmore, gives a bravura performance, it will nag at you as to why he speaks with a British accent. Yes, I know he IS British, but the story is in America and even though his father speaks with a Scottish accent, he never knew him growing up and he was raised in a New York orphanage. I guess that is part of the spiritual, new age feel of the film in which his father has influence over him without ever having met him. See what I mean by hokey?


Many will be totally forgiving of this film's flaws in favor of its messages of love, hope, and inspirational music that can guide us in life. I'm okay with that if that is the kind of person you are. I've been known to do that too and did so with Neil Diamond's version of The Jazz Singer; however, I can't with this film. Three stars doesn't mean I didn't like it. The film is okay enough, but if I were to watch it again, I would end up fast forwarding to only the musical elements in the film (as I imagine some doing with "The Jazz Singer"). I found the rest of the film tedious, shamelessly manipulative, and a lame retelling of 'Oliver Twist'. This is just my impression of this film that has a strong following and is rather loved by most, but to each his own. July 9, 2008

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