August Rush
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| August Rush | |
|---|---|
 Promotional poster |
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| Directed by | Kirsten Sheridan |
| Produced by | Richard Barton Lewis |
| Written by | Nick Castle James V. Hart Paul Castro |
| Starring | Freddie Highmore Keri Russell Jonathan Rhys Meyers Robin Williams Terrence Howard William Sadler Alex O’Loughlin |
| Music by | Mark Mancina |
| Cinematography | John Mathieson |
| Editing by | William Steinkamp |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | November 21, 2007 |
| Running time | 113 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $25 million |
| Official website | |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
August Rush is a 2007 drama film directed by Kirsten Sheridan and written by Paul Castro, Nick Castle, and James V. Hart, and produced by Richard Barton Lewis.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
A boy named Evan Taylor (Freddie Highmore) lives in an orphanage, all the while believing that his parents are alive. He believes the music that he hears all around him is his parents communicating with him. Evan meets a counselor, Richard Jeffries (Terrence Howard), of the New York Child Services Department. Evan tells him he does not want to be adopted because he believes his parents are still alive.
Through a series of flashbacks, his parents are revealed to be a famous concert cellist named Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell), and Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), an Irish guitarist and lead singer of a rock band, who spend one romantic night together and never see each other again. While Evan has believed his parents have wanted him all along, his mother only lately comes to find out that her son is alive and sets out to New York to find him. His father has never forgotten Lyla and doesn't know about Evan. Both have since given up music.
Evan makes his way to New York City, where he is taken in by a man known as "Wizard" (Robin Williams), who houses various orphans and runaways, employing them to play music on the streets, and taking a large cut of their tips. Evan immediately proves to be a musical child prodigy. Wizard enlists him, and gives him the name "August Rush", convincing him he will be sent back to the orphanage if his real name is ever discovered. After a raid by the police, Evan takes refuge in a church, where he again impresses with his natural musical talent, and is enrolled at the Juilliard School as "August Rush". A work he composes is chosen to be performed by the New York Philharmonic in Central Park, but Wizard barges into a rehearsal, and Evan reluctantly follows him back to his life of playing on the streets.
Meanwhile, Lyla has discovered Evan's identity and has been living in New York searching for him. While there, she decides to resume her cello career, and is chosen to play in the concert featuring Evan's piece. Louis, believing Lyla to be married, also returns to New York to resume playing with his former band, and has a chance meeting with Evan in Washington Square Park.
The night of the concert, Evan finally chooses to run from Wizard in favor of performing at his concert. Louis races to the park when he sees Evan's pseudonym along with Lyla's name on a sign billing the concert. Evan conducts his piece, and at its conclusion, he turns around to see Lyla and Louis standing hand in hand, and he finally makes the connection that they're his parents.
[edit] Cast
- Freddie Highmore - Evan Taylor / August Rush
- Keri Russell - Lyla Novacek
- Jonathan Rhys Meyers - Louis Connelly
- Robin Williams - Maxwell "Wizard" Wallace
- Terrence Howard - Counselor Richard Jeffries
- William Sadler - Thomas Novacek
- Jamia Simone Nash - Hope
- Kaki King - Evan Taylor's hands (for all the guitar shots)
[edit] Music
- "Moondance"
Written by Van Morrison, performed by Jonathan Rhys Meyers - "This Time"
Written by Chris Trapper, Performed by Jonathan Rhys Meyers - "Bari Improv"
Written by Mark Mancina and Kaki King, Performed by Kaki King - "Ritual Dance"
Written by Michael Hedges, Performed by Kaki King - "Raise It Up"
Written by Impact Repertory Theatre, Performed by Jamia Simone Nash and Impact Repertory Theatre
Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song - "Dueling Guitars"
Written by Heitor Pereira, Performed by Heitor Pereira and Doug Smith - "Someday"
Written by John Legend
The final number with Lyla and Louis begins with Lyla playing the Adagio-Moderato from Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E Minor.
Except for "Dueling Guitars", all of August's guitar pieces were played by American guitarrist/composer Kaki King, performing as his hands for the movie.
Composer Mark Mancina spent over a year and a half composing the score of August Rush. "The heart of the story is how we respond and connect through music. It's about this young boy who believes that he's going to find his parents through his music. That's what drives him."[cite this quote] The final theme of the movie was composed first. "That way I could take bits and pieces of the ending piece and relate it to the things that are happening in (August's) life. All of the themes are pieces of the puzzle, so at the end it means something because you've been subliminally hearing it throughout the film."[cite this quote] The score was recorded at the Todd-AO Scoring Stage and the Eastwood Scoring Stage at Warner Brothers.[1]
[edit] Reception
In a review by USA Today, Claudia Puig commented that "August Rush will not be for everyone, but it works if you surrender to its lilting and unabashedly sentimental tale of evocative music and visual poetry."[2] The Hollywood Reporter reviewed the film positively, writing "the story is about musicians and how music connects people, so the movie's score and songs, created by composers Mark Mancina and Hans Zimmer, give poetic whimsy to an implausible tale."[3]
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 36% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 110 reviews. "Consensus: Though featuring a talented cast, August Rush cannot overcome the flimsy direction and schmaltzy plot."[4] On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 38 out of 100, based on 27 reviews.[5]
Pam Grady of the San Francisco Chronicle called the film "an inane musical melodrama." Grady said "the entire story is ridiculous" and "Coincidences pile on, behavior and motivations defy logic, and the characters are so thinly drawn that most of the cast is at a loss."[6] Edward Douglas of comingsoon.net said it "doesn't take long for the movie to reveal itself as an extremely contrived and predictable movie that tries too hard to tug on the heartstrings."[cite this quote]
Roger Ebert gave the movie three stars, calling it "a movie drenched in sentimentality, but it's supposed to be".[7]
The film was compared to Dickens' Oliver Twist and Coram Boy by Jamila Gavin.[8][9]
[edit] Awards
The soundtrack has songs from new and established acts. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, though it lost to "Falling Slowly," a score from Once.
[edit] References
- ^ Dan Goldwasser. "Scoring Session Photo Gallery from August Rush", ScoringSessions.com. Retrieved on 2008-02-29.
- ^ Puig, Claudia. Lilting 'August Rush' is poetry in emotion. USA Today. Retrieved on 2008-02-29.
- ^ Honeycutt, Kirk (November 08, 2007). August Rush. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved on 2008-02-29.
- ^ August Rush - Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on 2007-11-27.
- ^ August Rush (2007): Reviews. Metacritic. Retrieved on 2007-11-27.
- ^ Pam Grady (2007-11-21). Review: Orphan has a song in his heart in 'August Rush'. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved on 2007-11-27.
- ^ Roger Ebert. "August Rush", Chicago Sun-Times, 2007-11-21. Retrieved on 2007-11-26.
- ^ Smith, Sid (2007-11-21). August Rush (Oliver Twist reset in N.Y.) — 2 stars. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved on 2007-12-15. “Turn to the master, Charles Dickens, or better yet, update and recycle him. Such must have been the thinking behind August Rush, a thinly disguised retelling of Oliver Twist, transplanted to contemporary New York and sweetened by a theme of the healing magic of music.”
- ^ Covert, Colin (2007-11-20). Movie review: Romanticism trumps reason in Rush. Star Tribune. Retrieved on 2007-12-15. “If Charles Dickens were alive today, he might be writing projects like August Rush, the unabashedly sentimental tale of a plucky orphan lad who falls in with streetwise urchins as he seeks the family he ought to have. Come to think of it, Dickens did write that one, and called it Oliver Twist.”
