Cast of august rush6/30/2023 ![]() How else could one explain the final scene? Not only is he a musical genius, but he appears to be imbued with ESP as well. It's impossible to accept August as a human being because there's nothing about him that seems real. Highmore cries frequently and wears that stupid grin a lot, but he never emotes. He's a blank slate, complete with glazed-over eyes and a slack-jawed smile. Judging by his performance in August Rush, one might think he had never been in front of a camera before. Had the movie focused more on August's peculiar kind of brilliant madness and less on the dreary soap opera of his possible reunion with his mother and father, August Rush might have offered something of value.įreddy Highmore is a relatively high profile child actor, with a resume that includes significant roles in Finding Neverland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We don't get enough of this, perhaps because Sheridan is afraid of overusing the technique. We look through August's eyes and hear through his ears, where every sound, no matter how mundane, becomes a note in the symphony of life in the city. There are several scenes in which Sheridan attempts to get us into the mind of a musical prodigy and show how he sees the world. When a movie implodes this spectacularly, it's impossible not to be impressed, if not necessarily for the right reasons.Īugust Rush has one good idea, but it's not effectively exploited. I was soon laughing so hard that I was almost in tears. There's one sequence in August Rush when the contrivances explode out of the gate with such frequency that they're stumbling over one another. The characters seem not in the grip of Fate but moved by the hand of filmmakers who wouldn't know the meaning of "subtlety" if they looked it up in a dictionary. It comes across as silly, cloying, and cheesy. Unfortunately, director Sheridan proves unable to make us believe in this. Lyla and Louis both play instruments and August sees and hears music in everyday actions. It isn't coincidence that Lyla and Louis meet and their single coupling results in August. Eventually, he runs away and ends up on the streets of New York, where his amazing musical talents blossom under the sometimes cruel tutelage of Wizard (Robin Williams).Īugust Rush would like us to believe that some mystical Force (as the characters describe it, it sounds a lot like the one in Star Wars) binds everyone together. Meanwhile, that boy, who will eventually go by the name of August Rush (Freddie Highmore), ends up in an orphanage, where he is bullied. Alone and lonely, these two sad souls live their lives, not knowing there is someone out there connected to them. ![]() Nine months later, Lyla gave birth to a bouncing baby boy but her father (William Sadler) gave the child up for adoption after telling his daughter the infant had not survived the birth. 12 years ago, Juliard-trained cellist Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell) and rock singer Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) shared a magical night together, but circumstances parted them the next day even though they were clearly meant for one another. The movie is about how fate contrives to bring three people together - "contrives" being a key word. ![]() It's one of many things that August Rush does wrong. ![]() Instead of giving us the moment that a mawkish melodrama like this demands, we are presented with a diluted and minimally satisfying shadow of the moment. August Rush is constructed on a foundation of interconnected failures, the biggest of which comes at the very end. It's not difficult to understand what director Kirsten (daughter of Jim) Sheridan is attempting and equally easy to see that she doesn't achieve her goal. The film intends to be a modern day fable about fate and music and Dickensian characters but the sloppiness of the script and haphazard nature of the direction turns everything rancid. There are times when it tips the scales of absurdity and becomes almost comical. August Rush isn't just a bad movie - it's an aggressively bad movie. ![]()
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