AUGUST RUSH
Movie Reviews by Jen Frankel 
August Rush Directed by Kirsten Sheridan Starring Freddie Highmore, Keri Russell Terrence Howard and Robin Williams SYNOPSIS Louis and Lyla, one a rock musician and the other a classical cellist, meet and spend one magical New York night falling in love before losing each other. Evan, who has never known his mother and father, hears music in the air that draws him toward the city and to his destiny. REVIEW Warning (not quite the same as a spoiler) - "August Rush" is a film just brimming with joy. It's not a film to watch in a cynical frame of mind, but one to enjoy like you just ate up Christmas as a seven-year old. It's a fairy tale, of New York, of abandonned orphans, of the power of something as ephemeral and abstract as music and as potent as love. Director Kirsten Sheridan has an odd resume; she got her start as an actor playing Sharon in My Left Foot, and moved freely through the moviemaker ranks as camera operator, editor, writer ("In America"), and director. She works magic here, thanks especially to a beautiful musical score and a strong cast. Movies about genius, in particular musical genius, are a tough sell especially if you're a musician yourself. To try to dissect the talent or inspiration of an artist is like trying to describe the color of water: the vessel and the observer changes the result completely. Somehow, even skating dangerously close to melodrama, this film really does it. Maybe that's not even an insult. The film's spiritual mother is "Oliver Twist," and I don't think Charles Dickens would flinch at that description. Freddie Highmore is proving himself more and more with each successive project as a young actor with depth and poise. You may remember him as Charlie in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," already his fifth feature. Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Keri Russell (Felicity) are beautifully cast as talented artists in their own rights who lose their love for music as they lose each other. And Robin Williams gets to strike out in a darker direction in his Fagin-esque role as Wizard, a failed and jaded streetsinger who farms out his orphans to busk New York's corners and parks, taking their "tips" for himself. The reason it works is that there is a fairytale quality to everything about this film, from the sweeping camera that picks up details of nature, humans, and the man-made world, turning everything into a kind of fantastic landscape as if you're seeing it for the first time. Meyers is perhaps a little more believable as a musician that Russell, but you can cut her some slack - cello is a very difficult instrument to even PRETEND to play. Sheridan hands a complexly woven story with deft stroke, and hits every emotional beat. Watch "August Rush" with open eyes and heart, and see it with someone you love. You'll be in for a treat.
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