Pretty decent despite the corny theme

Rating: 8/10 (28 July 2011)

Only the magic of movies could make a very unrealistic, unbelievable and improbable story become something joyfully good and very nice to watch. In "August Rush", Freddie Highmore is an orphan boy who escaped the place he was living and goes to New York City where he'll try to find his parents, of whom he never met but he firmly believes they're alive. His search for them is based on following the music, as he says something he really loves, and he'll connect his mom and dad (who are apart of each other) through the music he plays. The movie gives us the vantage of knowing that the boy's parents were two musicians, a rock star played by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, and a concertist played by Keri Russell, and both parted different ways after one night stand without knowing what happened to each other, and not even knowing they have a son. In the city, the boy will meet Wizard (Robin Williams), a drifter who uses street kids as street musicians and he'll be surprised with the boy's talent for music, "contracting" his services and giving to the boy the artistic name of August Rush.
As I said, an unrealistic story. But, at times we seem to forget that movies are only mirrors for life, showing a image of life but not really the real image, it's always a slightly distortion, which is why movies are movies and life is life. When people complain that a movie wasn't realistic pointing things here and there it's so annoying that one must ask to himself: What do you really want of a film life or entertainment? Because if we had to look at "August Rush" as the real thing we would be disappointed but seeing as a beautiful voyage of the imagination, this movie works perfectly. It goes for obvious ways, avoids some clichés here and there but it gets trapped with some happy clichés (the climatic ending, though very exciting), it's kind of corny like some nostalgic films of the 1940's but it's always well intentioned. Shows us the beauty, the magic of hearing and perceiving music (to me, the most sublime of arts, if not, the most perfect. A quite harsh opinion coming from someone who really, really loves movies but that's what I believe) and the importance it have in people's lives. Not only August is touched by music but the other characters as well, even Wizard who teaches to August great things about how one must feel the music in order to play it. Music is out there and we need to listen!
The thing I really like about this picture was the choice of actors in their roles, they're all perfectly fit. It's almost impossible to not like them. Highmore is one of the best young actors to ever appear on the screen and his presence makes the whole film; Rhys-Meyers is very charming and nice playing a man who turned his back to the music after not finding inspiration for composing when the love of his life vanished of his life; Keri is effective as her companion; Robin Williams goes okay in playing not much of a positive character, barely resembling the hobo he played in "The Fisher King"; and we have the talents of Terrence Howard, Marian Seldes, Ronald Guttman, Alex O'Loughlin and Mykelti Williamson in secondary characters. And there's the good songs played throughout the film, one of them Oscar nominated for best song in 2008. Pretty decent movie with good qualities and that's a huge deal in times where films seem to have almost none. 8/10