Trite and disappointing.

Rating: 1/10 (17 November 2007)

I anticipated a moving, uplifting feature. I was not impressed.
The acting was unconvincing, the character development nonexistent: Russell, who spends most of the film gazing wistfully at various points on the horizon, evokes virtually no sympathy as a woman who loses her son and lapses into a decade-long depression; Rhys-Meyers is flat and uninspiring as August's tortured rock-musician-turned-bond-trader father ("I'm sad...I'm Irish...I'm sad"); and Williams is only mildly creepy as Wizard, the Fagin-like ringmaster of a coterie of musical ragamuffins who live in (of course!) an abandoned theater. Highmore is sweetly clueless and has a few memorable lines, but his enormous talent is put to waste as he drifts through a fallible plot that speeds by him.
The music: Russell, who spent six months "learning" the cello, is an atrocious faker; she would make those with even a minimal amount of musical training cringe. Rhys-Meyers's performance scenes are slightly better, but we all know that Hollywood makes a great music video. The final concert is decent but unmoving, requiring an almost superhuman suspension of disbelief. Jamia Simone Nash, however, was excellent.
I had such high hopes for this movie, but it turned out to be a hokey bit of film-making that tried way too hard.
Honestly? Go see "P2" instead.