August Rush
Studio: Warner Bros.
Rated: PG
Website: http://augustrushmovie.warnerbros.com/
Release Date: 2007-11-21
Cast: Freddie Highmore, Robin Williams, Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Terrence Howard
Director: Kirsten Sheriden
WorkNameSort: August Rush
Our Rating: 0.00
Hitting all the bases as a clichéd child-prodigy film and as a clichéd orphan-in-search-of-parents film, August Rush is pandering to the point of offensive. This bogus fairytale centers on the title character (Freddie Highmore), who leaves a children’s home in order to track down his parents after 11 years without them. He finds the music that’s always been in his soul, magically hooking up with a dilapidated opera house turned youth music commune, a welcoming family of gospel singers and sycophantic stuffed shirts at Juilliard who offer him the headlining spot for the New York Phil’s spring concert. Meanwhile, concert cellist Mom (Keri Russell) and rock frontman Dad (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), who conceived their child during a preposterous, flashback-provided one-night stand, have found themselves creatively blocked and alone, waiting for the inevitable hand of destiny to bring them together again. Everything in the story just “happens” – there’s no rhyme or reason to any of it. The film is predicated on the hokey notion that music is the world’s spiritual connector – an excuse for screenwriters Nick Castle and James V. Hart to get away with shameless contrivance after shameless contrivance.
This article appears in Nov 21-27, 2007.