AUGUST RUSH
The Food Of Music Is In The Best Interests Of This Child
PopcornReel.com Movie Review: "August Rush"
By Omar P.L. Moore/November 21, 2007
Music Is My Girlfriend: Freddie Highmore as Evan Taylor, aka August Rush, in the
film by Kirsten Stewart (aka Kirsten Sheridan) entitled "August Rush", which
opened today in theaters across the U.S. and Canada. (All photos: Abbot
Genser/Warner Brothers)
Kirsten Stewart makes her feature-film directing debut with
"August Rush" and commits one cardinal sin: she over-orchestrates and
over-directs, in the same way that the film's title character does where music
is concerned. Ms. Stewart (aka Kirsten Sheridan), who happens to be film
director Jim Sheridan's daughter, co-wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for
her father's film "In America", a dazzling and haunting film set in New York
City. Here however, Ms. Stewart's direction of a story of a young boy who
has lost his parents and been adopted (by no one in particular), and then relies
on the power of music to find them is continually forced and manufactured,
packed with melodrama at every turn, making "August Rush" a stale and
unsentimental film.
Too bad, because Freddie Highmore -- a cherubic and charismatic figure as Evan
Taylor, a fearless young boy of 11 or 12 years old who wanders the streets of
the Big Apple in search of his mother and father -- is sublime here, and the
only one of note in this extended cast list who compels our attention.
Evan has a musical ear -- he loves music more than he does food, and it shows.
He hears the sounds of music everywhere -- in spherical shapes, tubular bells,
subway grates, even in the wind itself. Evan's musical odyssey is intercut
with a tedious back story of "how I met your mother", if you will, with Jonathan
Rhys-Meyers as Louis Connelly, a working-class rock musician (is there any other
kind?) and Keri Russell as Lyla Novacek, an accomplished cellist whose
middle-class life apparently has given her little to smile about. (Hint:
Lyla smiles at only two or three moments during the entire film.) Without
each other Louis and Lyla are joyless and static, just like the film is with
them in it. The story about Lyla's and Louis's backgrounds is probably the
biggest problem with "August Rush". Each story involves conflict as well
as a continually forced and unconvincing musical connection between the two
stories, and for a such a happy child as Evan to have two moping, antagonistic
beings as parents is something of a minor miracle, among other things.
Ironically, since the screenplay by Nick Castle and James V. Hart (story by Mr.
Castle and Paul Castro) is not nearly saccharine sweet enough, the viewer is
left with dueling narratives, smashed together like discordant cymbals in an
awkward percussion set.
Which isn't the kind of music that "August Rush" is supposed to make.
There is a symphony of sour that lines this film, and in another director's
hands -- or to be fair to Ms. Stewart -- another screenwriter's or editor's
hands, "August Rush" would be the emotional treasure that it should have been.
Instead, the audience is accosted by a variety of additional characters who fill
up just enough screen time to get them to the film's final fifteen minutes,
which are as predictable as the night following the day (except in Alaska.)
William Steinkamp's editing is a major issue in the film. And there is too
much directing and tone cliches -- the rainstorm with characters sitting in it
and getting wetter than a sea lion; one character's running through a busy
street of cars in a frenzy; another running to make it to a certain place to get
there with moments to spare. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? You
run like hell (out of a New York movie theater playing "August Rush".)
Simply put, "August Rush" comes at you in a rush, but it's not a
rush of emotion, it's a rush of exhaustion.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Louis and Keri Russell as Lyla, in "August Rush", which
also features Terrence Howard as a child services worker.
The always majestic Terrence Howard plays a child services worker
but for someone whose charge it is to look out for missing, orphaned or
abandoned children and find them parents and homes to be placed in, he is guilty
of a little oversight or at the very least a lapse in attention. There is
an amazingly blundering (or damning) moment which puts the milk carton missing
announcement to ridicule. (Translated: if you can't find the milk carton,
how are you going to find the missing child on it?) And another question
while this review is at it: with all the child runaways in the world, and in New
York City in particular, where are "New York's Finest"? Obviously the Big
Apple's police are missing in action, as there aren't any on hand during this
film (with one clumsy exception) to find kids. If you are eagle-eyed
enough to spot the blunder hinted at earlier you will see that Mr. Howard's
character and the police just aren't doing their jobs well. (Anyone care
for a "Brave One" flashback?)
And there's more: Robin Williams plays Wizard, a rascally
busker of old who is a pimp, shaking down his kiddie crew of musicians who earn
a modest living on their designated street corners, one of them a Jimi Hendrix
wannabe named Arthur (played by Leon G. Thomas III.) This part of the
story highlights the class differences between Wizard's "child care" and the
type offered by government services to kids who look like Evan (whom Wizard
befriends and gives the film's name) does. Wizard's whiz-kids are
predominantly black, Hispanic and Asian, and the only kid that Mr. Howard's
character seems to be interested in is Evan. While it is unclear that Ms.
Stewart is setting out to make this observation about class and race, it is a
point that is unavoidable and unmistakable in "August Rush".
When you toss William Sadler (who is in "The Mist", which also opened today) in
to the mix as Lyla's father -- are he and Lyla even on the same planet? -- they
appear to talk past each other in several scenes; and you add Mykelti Williamson
as a reverend who seems to pop out of nowhere -- some kind of ethereal being
that has no connection to the story other than to smile on it for a few minutes
-- you have a film that is ambitious, mysterious and as hollow as a paper bag.
It is good to see that Mr. Williamson (who played LAPD Detective Drucker in
"Heat" in 1995) is back on his feet again (his name could so easily have been on
a milk carton or an all-points bulletin), but his skills and abilities are
wasted here in what amounts to a cameo performance. Too much goes on in
"August Rush", and while the catchy original music score by Mike Mancina is its
saving grace (as well as an adorable Jamia Simone Nash as one of the reverend's
church choir kids), neither these elements nor the film's last few minutes are
nearly enough to make sweet music for the audience overall.
"August Rush" is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association of America for
some thematic elements, mild violence and language. The film's duration is
one hour and 43 minutes.
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