A Wonder of Emotion, some people have sour grapes about

Rating: 10/10 (21 February 2012)

SPOILERS!!!
The movie is wonderful. I get the sense the Evan might have a touch of S y n e s t h e s i a - also correctly spelled in the English speaking world as s y n a e s t h e s i a...neither of these is in the IMDb spelling dictionary...IMDb needs to fix its dictionary.
There is a moment in which we see letters dancing about even OFF of a sign he is looking at (or this might be dyslexia).
He seems to sense music in everything. People with that capacity might just have it cross over into s y n e s t h e s i a.
I love this movie. It touched me deeply as a musician. I did not find the story too contrived as there really are people who were taken away from a parent by way of a mother being told that her child died. It was common for a long time. It happened often in Australia even in the 1970s. There are also many known cases where a parent and child (separated) or of siblings (etc) - found one another years later...by accident.
I also did not find the child's musical abilities to be impossible. My wife went to University at 9 in a program developed for her (IQ > 200) and I am a IT specialists and musician (I play many instruments and compose and have played instruments better after one afternoon than other did after years of effort). He had an entire school days long to play with and learn the BASIC staff.
I found Robin Williams very believable as a person guilty of Faginy...but instead of a band of young thieves he trained musicians...with JUST ENOUGH knowledge to keep them dependent on him. He kept basic IMPORTANT pieces of music theory unknown to them - the musical staff, t a b l a t u r e (IMDB...FIX YOUR DICTIONARY) , etc - all of which really helps musicians in learning and communicating with one another. WIZARD did all this to keep his money. He used FEAR to keep Evan in his hands...all for the money.
I also found the scenes with the son and father playing music together to be very reminiscent of my own experiences in the way that musicians really do act, in pure joy of musical expression...playing together and bouncing ideas off each other.
So yes, as a musician who is/was a lower level prodigy with a wife who was off the charts in all mental abilities, I know a bit about being unusual. As such, I did not find this at all unbelievable.
ALSO - in reply to "headly66"
Evan did not INVENT a new way to play the guitar.
I have seen people play this way, It is not new. I have used variations on it myself. There are a huge number of different ways to play the guitar and may different ways to tune it. I have used that method of playing (both hands on the neck, striking the strings with the flat of the hand and using "hammerons"). It is now new. You know very little about the guitar, music or real highly unusual 'prodigies'.
I happen play many instruments, some of which I could play after one day (without instructions) better than other people who I knew, who had several years of lessons. Is it an average experience? No. It does still happen. Unfortunately in the real world, life gives and takes. You will not be seeing me at a concert ever again, after years of performing.I am disabled and have M.C.S. now.
Some of the people who saw this don't seem to understand what it means to be a prodigy. I like this story for the very reason that it is a tale in which one person out of so many other like them...just ONE of the very rare, the very talented, the highly intelligent...got a real CHANCE in the world instead of having their life destroyed by a predator, Monsanto, a war, crazy parents...and even did so in the only first world nation to *NOT* have any real affordable education or health care. Just once...in fiction...an amazingly talented kid did not have their life and talent destroyed by the greedy...nothing went wrong that was not corrected in time.
* CYNIC ALERT *
Of course the cynic in me says that "WIZARD" stalked Evan...and later on (exactly one year to the date after the concert, in a fit of rage) came after Evan and kidnapped him after killing his parents (Telling Evan he had them prisoner and would kill them if he did not cooperate). Later, after years of playing on the street as a modern slave...his healths fails him. Breathing in all those exhaust fumes and eating cheep GM and additive filled food, eventually leaves our genius child as a young adult...fat and pale, no longer producing testosterone, sterile from GM soy in fast foods, losing his memory from early onset Alzheimers from pesticides, and then eventually dead from cancer by 25...in the gutter...as an unknown John Doe...but then that's just me <(evil grin) ...ha ha ha... (maybe in a version as if done by Ingmar Bergman).