~ “I believe in music…the way that some people believe in fairy tales” ~
Freddie Highmore as August Rush

What this movie does so well, is thread the two together: music as a modern-day fairy-tale – a perfect escape from a materialistic world.

It’s a long time since a movie catapulted itself straight into my top five of all time – in fact I think the last time was the Lord of the Rings series. Its appeal to me may be partly to do with my lifelong love of music and my spiritual leanings. However it’s a thought-provoking and positive movie which should leave any viewer with a warm glow in their heart and, just maybe, a new perspective.

~ “A harmonic connection between all living things, everywhere, even the stars” ~
Robin Williams as Wizard Wallace

The two main themes of the movie are music and love.

The plot revolves around a child lost in the system, Evan Taylor, whose saving grace is music. He hears music in everything and everywhere, longs for an instrument to express the music in his heart, and intuitively seems to know that his love of music is his link with his parents, who do not know he exists at the beginning of the picture.

Evan “follows the music” on an incredible journey, meeting along the way the eccentric “Wizard” Wallace who facilitates Evan’s first encounter with a guitar and dubs him with the stage name August Rush, and attending Juilliard where he is able to take his music to new heights and reach a larger audience. Much of the tension in the film rests on the question of whether or not that audience will be wide enough to include his parents.

The soundtrack is very clever, which is fitting for a movie centering around music. The same simple, but haunting, musical phrases are repeated and evolve into the August Symphony we hear towards the end, so in a sense the film acts like a piece of music, building up to an emotional crescendo in the movie’s final movements.

I particularly loved the way the movie depicted music as a point of connection between people. There are several amazing scenes where the classical music played by August’s natural mother, cellist Lyla Novacek, and the soft rock played by his father, guitarist Louis Connelly, are arranged around each other showing that although they are apart the connection between them still manifests in the music.

While all those who worked on the movie did a great job on the whole, the composer of the original music, Mark Mancina, definitely deserves a lot of credit as the music really is the lynchpin of the film.

The forbidden love between Lyla and Louis, and the love against all odds that August has for the parents he doesn’t know, and that particularly Lyla reciprocates even before she has found her lost boy, speaks of fate, destiny, synchronicity and soulmates. This made the film spiritually inspiring in a beautiful and understated way for me.

If you stick with the movie throughout the first half which can be slow and infuriating in places, you may just, as I did, be silently willing the music to work the magic August believes it can, as an expression of love and spiritual connection, by the closing scenes.

Throughout most of the picture I was never quite sure whether a resolution would in fact come. The mood of much of the film is lonely and melancholy, with all three of the pivotal characters longing to be reunited with those they love, and there is a sense of hopelessness around them which is played well by the three actors – Freddie Highmore as August, Keri Russell as Lyla and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Louis.

Ultimately, the themes are developed in this movie more than the characters themselves, which in a sense is fitting for a movie with a definite ‘message’ to put across.

~ “What do you want to be most in the world?” “Found.” ~
Robin Williams as “Wizard” Wallace and Freddie Highmore as August Rush

I think whether or not you enjoy the performances of the main actors in the movie depends on whether or not you “do” subtle and understated.

I personally think that the subtlety is well done and quite deliberate, mirroring the theme of music as a subtle thread interconnecting kindred souls across existence. It also plays down a little the one-in-a-million type chance encounters which are featured throughout this movie. Like our memories, it’s an account of three personal journeys featuring all of the red letter days and none of the mundane. So the subtlety of the acting helps the “big moments” feel more realistic, in many ways.

The child actors in the film do extremely well. Freddie Highmore captures August’s joy in his music with a beautiful innocence and brightness as well as a devastating smile! Two of the children he meets along the way, Arthur played by Leon Thomas III and Hope played by Jamia Simone Nash, are well observed and bring a little light-heartedness to an otherwise quite heavy mood.

I felt that Keri Russell played the tortured soul longing for her one true love and the child she thought she’d lost, quite believably; though none of the characters were really fully rounded within the movie – the glimpses into their worlds are quite fleeting, though you see enough of what the characters have been through to care. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is cast well as the aspiring young rocker who loses his way and his music when he loses his girl. Neither role demanded a great range of acting styles or abilities, but their ability to play emotions subtly fits well with the movie.

Robin Williams is one of my favourite actors – if not THE favourite – but I’m still not sure I like to see him cast as a bad guy. What I do like in this film is that his character, the flamboyant “Wizard” Wallace, has a little more depth in that earlier in the film, he is an inspiration and protector to August; only later is it revealed that he may in fact more interested in what the kids can do for him than what he can do for the kids. I didn’t feel this character was written or cast well, because the two ‘sides’ of him were not terribly coherent, and Williams played the deep and inspirational side much better and more convincingly than the domineering side.

The cover art for the DVD is equally subtle, sporting memorable scenes from the film and featuring the central character, August, with his first guitar, in the foreground.

If you want to explore any of the characters, their developments and motivations, better, there are a few extra glimpses to be gleaned from the deleted scenes, which are the only feature available on the DVD. While the film flowed well without them and may have felt too dragged-out if they were included, they did round out the characters of “Wizard” and Louis quite interestingly. I don’t buy DVDs for the bonus features, so I didn’t mind there not being anything more – this is the kind of film that should just speak for itself.

There is more chemistry between August and his music than between any two characters in the movie, but Freddie Highmore and Jonathan Rhys Meyers do have a pleasing chemistry when they eventually collide. In a way, saving that for a crucial point in the movie compliments the changing dynamics of the plot towards the end.

~ “You never quit on your music…that’s the one place you can escape to and just let it go…You gotta have a little faith” ~
Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Louis Connelly

Overall, this picture really touched me, and I will admit I actually liked the touch of the fantasist about it, because I’m a firm believer in positive thinking, following your heart and your dreams, and seizing every opportunity to make them happen. I wish in a way there were more movies about endearing characters whose purity of thought and determination in pursuing their goals are never weighed down by the cares of everyday life…because it’s how I try to live my life.

I do feel that it reached me on such a deep level because it echoed many of my own deep-seated beliefs and helped restore my hope in some areas of my life…and because it depicts music as a living, purposeful energy that can interconnect lives separated by time and distance.

I will admit to being a dreamy, airy-fairy and arty-farty person some of the time, and if you’re not like me, you may not enjoy this film. If the niggly things I’ve mentioned bug you, you’ve missed the point of the film really, so it’s better to let it wash over you and indulge in the beauty the underlying idea. If action and amazing cinematic effects are a must for you, you won’t find any of that in August Rush. However, nor is it needed or appropriate. I have rated the movie 4 out of 5 despite loving it myself, for the reason that I simply don’t think it has that wide an appeal, though I would love to be wrong.

I do believe in music the way that some people believe in fairy-tales. I also believe in the principle of fairy-tales, though rather more hard work, patience, persistence and an unshakeable faith tends to be demanded in the real-life version. That’s exactly why I love this movie. I believed once upon a time, and at a time in my life when even I had become cynical and bitter about a couple of areas of my life, it restored my belief.

I think this is probably a bit of a love or hate type of movie, so I hope this has helped you decide whether you have the patience to “listen” and let the story speak to your soul…