‘August Rush’ a little too slow
I once came across a greeting card with a Chinese proverb: Those
who hear not the music think the dancers mad.
In
”
August Rush,
”
the residents at a boys’ home in rural New York cannot hear the
music that Evan Taylor (Freddie Highmore) hears. Evan has been in
the home his entire life, but he insists the music will lead him to
his parents.
‘August Rush’ a little too slow
I once came across a greeting card with a Chinese proverb: Those who hear not the music think the dancers mad.
In “August Rush,” the residents at a boys’ home in rural New York cannot hear the music that Evan Taylor (Freddie Highmore) hears. Evan has been in the home his entire life, but he insists the music will lead him to his parents.
The story is parsed between the present and the past when Evan’s parents met, two young musicians who shared one night together. Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell) is a classical musician who plays the cello. Even at an after party, she is dressed to the hilt in a cream-tinted gown. Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a rough-neck lead singer with a strong Dublin accent. He is in a T-shirt and dirty jeans the night they find each other. They meet when Lyla wanders onto the roof at a party, following the sound of a harmonica player in Central Park.
After one night together, they are torn apart by Lyla’s father who has dreams of her becoming a world-renown cellist. Even when she discovers she is pregnant, her father stops at nothing to keep her focused on her career.
“The baby is gone” he tells her when she awakes after giving birth.
Louis and Lyla both turn away from their music after their encounter, and 10 years later it seems they are still thinking of each other and what could have been. It is unclear why neither of them tried to contact the other over the intermingling decade, but viewers are supposed to believe it is the power of music that will eventually lead them back.
With the same sort of lack of reasoning, Evan runs away from the boys’ home and heads to New York City. We don’t know why he leaves or why he heads to New York. He says he is following the music that will lead him to his parents. In New York, he connects with a band of wayward children who all busk around New York with various instruments. They live in an abandoned theater and they turn over their earnings to Wizard (Robin Williams). It was Wizard’s rendition of “Moondance” by Van Morrison that first brought Evan’s parents together.
Wizard changes Evan’s name to August Rush and the boy picks up an instrument for the first time. Wizard plans his musical career when he recognizes Evan’s genius. But of course, Evan is more interested in finding his parents than in performing for money.
The movie had potential with an exceptional cast. Freddie Highmore performed opposite Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet in “Finding Neverland,” and held his own. Russell and Rhys Meyers also have had strong roles in recent movies. Even the supporting cast, Terrence Howard and Robin Williams, have been nominated or won Oscars.
But the script leaves too many unanswered questions. We don’t understand how Wizard ended up on the streets, or how he ended up as the care-giver to a herd of musical children. There is a brief mention that Richard Jeffries (Howard), the social worker assigned to Evan’s case, had children, but no explanation of what happened to them.
We never get a glimpse into why 10 years after giving up music, Lyla and Louis decide to perform again. He finds her number listed in Chicago with no problem now, but why didn’t he try sooner?
The biggest let down in the movie is that a film where music is the essence of life for the main characters, the score for the movie falls flat. There were only two musical moments that stood out in the movie. The first is when Louis sings a song he wrote after meeting Lyla. Rhys Meyers has played Elvis several times in made-for-TV movies, where he sang, and his raspy singing voice is a perfect fit in “August Rush.” The other moment is the first time Evan plays a guitar. He doesn’t strum it so much as bang it like a drum, but the sound that comes out of it is thrilling.
In the end the movie feels as though it moves too slowly across the surface to be fulfilling.
