August Rush
Review by Peter T. Chattaway | posted 11/21/2007
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"I believe in music the way some people believe in fairy tales." So says a boy named Evan (Freddie Highmore) at the beginning of August Rush, and right from the start, it is clear that we in the audience are being asked to believe in both of these things as well. Evan says he can sense music in everything around him, and as he stands outside, closes his eyes, and waves his hands through the wind and blades of grass, the film invites us to experience the sounds around him not as so much noise but as delicate instruments in a subtle, graceful symphony that only Evan can hear.
If this film is guided by any one template, though, it is not that of the symphony or the fairy tale, but rather that of Oliver Twist. Just as the Charles Dickens novel concerned an orphaned boy who runs away, falls in with the wrong crowd, and then learns of his true heritage, so too August Rush concerns a boy, Evan, who was abandoned at birth but makes his way to New York City convinced that he can find his birth parents—both of whom, it happens, were talented musicians.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Louis Connelly, Keri Russell as Lyla Novacek
If this film is a "fairy tale," it is mainly because the parents are still alive, albeit living in different cities, and they seem to share an almost mystical bond with each other and with their son, even though they have never met him before.
In flashbacks, we see how Lyla Novacek (Waitress's Keri Russell), an acclaimed classical cellist, met and shared a romantic evening with Louis Connelly (The Tudors' Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a singer and guitarist with an Irish rock 'n' roll band. And before they meet, on a rooftop overlooking Washington Square, they each perform in concerts that are edited together in such a way as to suggest that they were meant to make beautiful music together, despite the differences between their genres.
After their one night together, Louis and Lyla talk about meeting again, but they are kept apart by Lyla's father (William Sadler). Not only does he rush Lyla off to her next concert, but when it turns out she's pregnant—and a car accident causes her to give birth prematurely—he gives the child to an adoption agency and tells Lyla she lost the baby. Years pass, and Lyla and Louis are both so disheartened that they give up their music—but their son Evan grows up to become a musical prodigy.
Freddie Highmore as August Rush
It takes a while for him to realize his talents, though. Upon arriving in the big city, Evan meets Arthur (Leon G. Thomas III), a boy with a guitar who introduces Evan to a Fagin-like mentor named Wizard (Robin Williams), who lives with Arthur and a bunch of other homeless children in an abandoned theatre. The moment Evan puts his hands on a guitar, it turns out he is a genuine virtuoso, even though he has never played the instrument before—and so Wizard immediately tries to get Evan some gigs in local bars, figuring there is better money in posing as his "manager" than there is in collecting the earnings of the various underaged buskers.
It is Wizard who gives Evan his stage name, August Rush, pinched at random from a sign on a passing truck. And Evan keeps the name, even after he and Wizard are separated by a police raid. Evan finds shelter in a church, and turns out to be a pro at playing the piano, so the reverend enrolls him in Juilliard, where he goes on to create a symphony which, he hopes, will put him back in touch with his parents. And while all this is going on, we see that his parents are, indeed, inexplicably drawn back to New York, and to the musical careers that they had once abandoned.
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