This is going to be a flip-floppy review. I did find a lot of good in the movie “August Rush,” but I can’t recommend it without including some reservations as well.
Freddie Highmore stars as Evan Taylor, a little boy who was taken to an orphanage as an infant and has lived there ever since. He’s convinced that his parents will come back and find him someday, and this belief makes him the laughing stock at the boys’ home where he lives. He also has the uncanny ability to hear music in everything around him, and he believes this is his parents talking to him.
His mother’s name is Lila (Keri Russell), and she was a concert cellist, schooled at Julliard. His father is Lewis (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) a charming but roguish Irish rock singer. They met at a party and were instantly attracted to each other. They had a one night stand at the party and had every intention of spending the day together, but when Lila goes home to check in with her family, her father hauls her off to the next big concert and keeps her from contacting Lewis. She becomes pregnant and can’t even tell him about the baby – she has no idea where Lewis is. When she delivers prematurely, her father forges adoption papers and gives the baby away, telling Lila that the baby didn’t make it. He doesn’t want anything to interfere with her career, but ironically, her grief keeps her from performing ever again.
As Lila’s father lays dying, he confesses what he’s done, and she immediately begins to search for her son. At the same time, Lewis decides it’s time to try to find Lila, so all three members of this family are seeking each other. We see Evan run away from the home, Lila contact the adoption agency, and Lewis fly to New York where he last saw Lila. In the end, they all find each other again, brought together by the power of music.
On the outside, this sounds like a happy story, but it has some darker undertones. Evan meets up with a swindler (Robin Williams) who uses runaway children to perform on street corners for money. We see the harsher side of life as these children are intimidated into performing and then forking over their earnings. It also didn’t ring true to me that Lewis and Lila could form such a strong attachment to each other after one brief encounter that they would pine for each other every minute of every day since. It was more believable on Lila’s part, as she had a child to show for it and then the resulting grief of losing that child, but not so realistic for Lewis, who had every chance to move on. I would have liked to see them spend more time together before they were ripped apart and have a chance to form those bonds – that would have been more realistic to me. But the acting is really good, especially on Freddie Highmore’s part. That child is something else.
This film was rated PG.
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