Reviews

August Rush

An antidote to intelligence and insight

By RICHARD BECK | November 20, 2007

0.5 Stars

Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Keri Russell

Kirsten Sheridan’s movie is about Music: how Music connects all of us, how Music is everywhere, how all Music is uplifting, dammit, no matter what. Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Meyers star as two musicians (one a classical cellist, one a rock singer) who fall in love and make a baby after a 45-second exchange of inanities on a New York City rooftop. They are subsequently torn apart, and Evan (Freddie Highmore) is shipped off to an orphanage. Neither of his parents realizes he’s alive, but Evan can hear the music in everything — including telephone wires and manhole covers — and if he plays well enough, they just might hear and come running. What with all the cheap universalizing about harmony and rhythm, Jonathan Rhys Meyers’s slanty, disconcertingly sexual face, and Robin Williams’s bizarre turn as a musical pimp named Wizard, August Rush is a powerfully formulated antidote to intelligence and insight. 114 minutes | Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Circle + Suburbs

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Topics: Reviews , Jonathan Rhys Meyers , Kirsten Sheridan , Freddie Highmore , More

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