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by R.J. Carter Published: March 10, 2008
And in its way, "August Rush" succeeds on many levels. The focus of the tale is young Evan (Freddie Highmore), growing up parentless in a boys' orphanage. But Evan doesn't believe that his parents are dead, and insists that the day is coming when he'll find them again. His obstinance combined with his preternatural ability to hear music in everything (including messages from the moon) set him apart as a freak to be tortured by the rest of the boys. Finally having enough, he sets out on his own to find his parents, on a path that takes him straight to New York City. Through flashbacks, we learn that Evan's parents are Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), an Irish rocker, and Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell), an accomplished cellist. Before they even have their first meet, we are treated to a musical mashup of both of them in their various concerts, the music they're making blending seemlessly in and out with each other, from bar jam to orchestra. When they later meet up at the same party, it's magic and they spend a productive (and, as it happens, reproductive) evening together. And never see each other again. Lyla's possessive father sees to that. When he and Lyla later argue about her future and the fate of the baby, Lyla walks out on him and into the path of oncoming traffic. When she awakens later in the hospital, her father tells her the baby died. Musically, neither Louis nor Lyla has been able to play anything happy ever since that fateful night. Evan follows the music in New York, which leads him to a band of young vagabond musicians right out of Oliver Twist -- with Robin Williams completing the picture with his Fagan-esque role of Wizard, their out-of-his-mind leader. Evan admits that he's never played an instrument before, which makes him all but useless to Wizard -- but in the middle of the night, Evan takes up one of the amped guitars and begins drumming out (yes, drumming out) a complicated melody that impresses Wizard so much that he no longer sees the dollar signs of streetcorner begging, but the dollar signs of stage management.
Now, in and of itself, this all sounds like a lovely story, delivered with magical grace. But it's more like it's found the costuming of such a story and dressed itself up. Because ultimately the film is unfulfilling. Too many things happen behind the scenes, far too quickly, saving the writers the need to explain things, leaving it all up to that great catch-all, "Well, it's a modern fairy tale." I've read some of those, and surprisingly enough, they all have a narrative thread that makes sense in the context of the world the writer has established. Too much of "August Rush" doesn't. But boy, does it have some great emotional scenes, not to mention some phenomenal scoring! Highmore is believably lost in the real world and connected to something far more ethereal. Any failures of this film aren't on the part of the actors or composers. Bonus features are limited to a set of seven additional scenes. Audio is in English, French or Spanish, with optional subtitles in English, English for the Hearing Impaired, French, and Spanish. Previews on this disc include "Martian Child" and "Nancy Drew." |
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