Movie Review: The Face Of Love (2013)

Genre: Romantic Drama  

Director: Arie Posin  

Starring: Annette Bening, Ed Harris, Robin Williams, Amy Brenneman  

Running Time: 92 minutes  

Synopsis: The happy marriage of Nikki and Garrett (Annette Bening and Ed Harris) ends suddenly when he drowns on their 30th anniversary vacation in Mexico. Five years later Nikki is trying to move on with help from her neighbour Roger (Robin Williams) and daughter Summer (Jess Weixler). She then spots college art teacher Tom (also Ed Harris) who looks exactly like Garrett. She initiates a romance with Tom, without telling him about the uncanny resemblance.

What Works Well: In the central roles, Annette Bening and Ed Harris are reliably excellent, leaning on low key emotions to convey late middle age wisdom being buffeted by unexpected circumstances.

What Does Not Work As Well: A premise in search of a movie, the what-if question posited by writer and director Arie Posin quickly bumps against questionable character choices. The seemingly smart Nikki ignores the obvious dead-end of not telling her new lover about his resemblance to her ex-hubby. Her selfish emotional cruelty sets up inevitable conflicts when daughter Summer and neighbour Roger meet Tom. The drama then withers and dies on predictable meltdowns, made worse by a questionable ending that somehow contrives to misuse tragedy as a celebration of emotional re-birth.

Key Quote:

Tom (to Nikki): I could take a bath in how you look at me.

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Movie Review: Dead Poets Society (1989)

Genre: Coming-Of-Age Drama  

Director: Peter Weir  

Starring: Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke, Kurtwood Smith  

Running Time: 128 minutes  

Synopsis: In New England of 1959, Welton Academy is a stuffy private school for boys, emphasizing tradition and discipline. John Keating (Robin Williams) is the new and free-spirited poetry teacher, encouraging his students to seize the day and think independently. His students are inspired to recreate a secret poetry-loving club and start to test boundaries. Neil (Robert Sean Leonard) defies his strict father (Kurtwood Smith) and joins a theatre group; Knox (Josh Charles) pursues an unlikely romance; Todd (Ethan Hawke) gradually comes out of his shell; and Charlie (Gale Hanson) shocks the school community with an unacceptable demand.

What Works Well: The central anti-conformance message is liberating, and here delivered with the confidently smiling light touch of Robin Williams in one of his best performances. His John Keating was himself a student at Welton, and so the deliberate challenge to the status quo comes from a place of knowledge. Keating's moments of unorthodox teaching, including connecting with pictures of students past, instilling confidence to walk independently, prodding Todd to discover the poetry within in front of the class, and introducing a different perspective from atop the desk, all register with breezy profundity. Robert Sean Leonard and Ethan Hawke convey the rigours of adulthood transformations with convincing fragility, while director Peter Weir and cinematographer John Seale augment the drama with some beautifully captured imagery in and around Welton Academy.  

What Does Not Work As Well: Keating's largely blank backstory nudges him more towards a symbol rather than a person, and one of the boys' stories dominates the final act, leaving a few loose ends. Some of the scenes (including the outsiders brought to the Dead Poets Society cave and some of the soccer pitch sequences) just add unnecessary padding.

Key Quote:

Keating (whispering forcefully): Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.

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Movie Review: Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)

A cross-dressing comedy, Mrs. Doubtfire showcases the talents of Robin Williams but otherwise relies on obvious humour and simplistic emotional hot buttons.

In San Francisco, Daniel Hillard (Robin Williams) is a fun-loving actor married to interior designer Miranda (Sally Field). Daniel adores his three kids, teenagers Lydia (Lisa Jakub) and Chris (Matthew Lawrence) and the younger Natalie (Mara Wilson). After a raucous birthday party all but wrecks the house, Miranda decides she can no longer tolerate Daniel's juvenile antics and initiates divorce proceedings. He loses child custody and is heartbroken.

When Miranda advertises for an after-school housekeeper Daniel adopts the elaborate disguise of an elderly British nanny, calls himself Mrs. Doubtfire and secures the job, gaining the opportunity to see his kids a few hours each day. Ironically, Mrs. Doubtfire is tidy and responsible, and both Miranda and the kids are thrilled with her presence and homely advice. But life gets more complicated when Miranda starts to explore a romance with rich client Stu Dunmeyer (Pierce Brosnan), and Daniel pursues a real career opportunity as a children's television show host.

A comedy tailor made to unleash Robin Williams' comic excesses, Mrs. Doubtfire is two hours of accents, impersonations, and unconstrained and barely filtered jokiness. Most of it is funny, but little of it is sophisticated. Director Chris Columbus is happy to allow Williams to run loose, and makes no attempt to rein in his star.

The result is a broad and vivid comedy riding on the coattails of a simple concept, Williams in drag pretending to be a prim and proper English nanny. The plot evolves marginally to Daniel's determined efforts to disrupt ex-wife Miranda's new romance while scrambling to land a real job. Without ever getting serious about anything other than a father's love for his children, the film waves in passing at several themes including the devastating impact of divorce and the evolving nature of couplehood.

It all comes to a climax at a restaurant scene where Daniel has to be in both his real and adopted personas at the same time, and Columbus rumbles through this interminable sequence with the elegance of a dancing bear.

Nevertheless, there is no questioning Williams' talent to extract laughs out of any situation, nor his commitment to the role. He disappears under layers of clothes and makeup to bring Mrs. Doubtfire to life, and once he inhabits her bodysuit, wig and face, Williams creates and sustains a memorable and convincing dotty housekeeper. But despite all the juvenile physical humour and flapping of arms, the running time is too long, and the primary gag of Daniel having to frantically change clothes in short order to fool the right people at the right time is overused.

Mrs. Doubtfire sets the energy level at eleven, but it flares in all the obvious directions.

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Movie Review: Patch Adams (1998)

A biographical drama and comedy, Patch Adams examines one man's attempt to humanize medical care.

It's the late 1960s, and after a suicide attempt Hunter "Patch" Adams (Robin Williams) admits himself to a psychiatric facility. He discovers a talent for connecting with fellow patients at a personal level and making them laugh, improving their disposition. He checks himself out and pursues a dream to become a doctor, enrolling at the Medical College of Virginia. He befriends fellow-student Truman Schiff (Daniel London), but his attempts to get to know classmate Carin Fisher (Monica Potter) are initially firmly rebuffed.

Patch is disappointed with the limited patient interaction afforded to medical students, and starts surreptitiously visiting hospital patients to provide companionship and humour. His anti-establishment antics incur the wrath of Dean Walcott (Bob Gunton) and the contempt of his studious roommate Mitch Roman (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Patch achieves high course marks in addition to espousing a different approach to providing care, and slowly gathers a circle of followers to practice medicine differently.

Loosely based on the life of the real Dr. Adams and directed by Tom Shadyac, the film stays close to traditional free-spirit-versus-the-establishment trappings. With quality production values and solid performances from a good cast, Patch Adams delivers the requisite call to cheer for the underdog rocking the boat. But the film's blatant aggrandization coupled with an excessively mawkish music score provide an overdose of sugar.

For all the good intentions on display to support Adams' genuinely caring and charitable approach to patient treatment, the film stubbornly ignores some fundamental questions. Investing large amounts of time with a few patients must mean that many other patients are left behind. Adams' dream of providing free treatment for all is laudable except that funding has to come from somewhere. And an expansive, humour-filled and personable approach to patient care works with a Robin Williams-like personality, but maybe not so much for doctors not bestowed with such extroverted talent.

The Steve Oedekerk script is not interested in exploring the difficult sides of these issue, and is instead content to portray Adams as purely good and absolutely just, and anyone who disagrees with him as a fossil. There is a brief moment of reflection when Adams' methods contribute to tragedy, but before long a butterfly flutters its wings and it's back to the cause.

Williams and Monica Potter lead the cast and complement each other. Shadyac allows Williams enough free reign to sprinkle welcome humour and sharp wit at regular intervals, and otherwise the star remains adequately focused. Potter is the antidote, and for most of the film provides Carin with a spine of resilience to Adams' charms.

Patch Adams highlights the need for the medical profession to remember the name behind the number on the chart, but does so with all the subtlety of a bold underline with triple exclamation marks.

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Movie Review: The Big Wedding (2013)

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Movie Review: Nine Months (1995)

A romantic comedy about transitioning from couplehood to parenthood, Nine Months showcases Hugh Grant's emerging talents and achieves big laughs with some slick slap stick.

In San Francisco, child psychologist Sam (Grant) and ballet teacher Becky (Julianne Moore) are in a seemingly perfect long-term relationship. When she announces an unexpected pregnancy, Sam is frazzled and feels unready. His attitude is not helped by constant accidental interactions with the chaotic family of Marty and Gail (Tom Arnold and Joan Cusack), who have three kids and a fourth on the way. Sam's friend Sean (Jeff Goldblum), a struggling yet sophisticated artist, is also not a fan of babyhood, having just broken off a relationship to avoid becoming a father.

As the pregnancy progresses, Becky becomes more committed to the idea of having a child, while all Sam can focus on is the loss of his independence and the fundamental changes to their lifestyle. The couple reach a crisis point, not helped by the seemingly incompetent efforts of Dr. Kosevich (Robin Williams), a recent Russian immigrant with limited vocabulary.

Directed and co-written by Chris Columbus, Nine Months was Hugh Grant's first studio-backed Hollywood production. The film is perhaps overstuffed with Grant's signature mannerisms of rapid blinking, eye-shifting, stuttering and off-handed cynicisms, but overall this is a comedy that benefits from his talent and establishes the Grant screen persona as the likable but boyish urbane man who refuses to grow up.

This is rom-com where the romance eventually takes a back seat to the comedy. Columbus firmly sets his focus on achieving crowning laugh-out-loud moments, and largely delivers. Some of it is pure slapstick, including an encounter with a Barney-type dinosaur at a toy store, but it works. And thanks to Robin Williams committing to the insanity of a veterinarian insecure about his first foray into human medicine, the film's finale is a frantic classic.

In its more serious moments Nine Months preys on the theme of men unwilling to mature. Sam is at the peak of his youth's fantasy, enjoying being in love, an emerging career, a new sports car and a beautiful woman by his side. The concept of abandoning what appears to be perfection to dive into the world of fatherhood is terrifying, and not made any easier by his superficial observations of what appears to be the anarchy of families in the full swing of parenting. His transformation is of course linear and predictable, but Columbus makes the most of a natural and widespread anxiety.

The cast members provide strong support. Moore registers as a woman fully embracing impending motherhood and unafraid to make difficult decisions when needed. Robin Williams has just the two prominent scenes but is unforgettable as Dr. Kosevich, while Jeff Goldblum delivers another version of his superficially smooth expert roles, gradually revealing Sean as a king of nothing.

Nine Months captures the emotional disarray of pregnancy: the gestation period is long, if for no other reason than to allow men to catch up with the drastic changes to come.

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Movie Review: Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

A Vietnam War comedy drama, Good Morning, Vietnam ignited Robin Williams' film career. His manic performance as Armed Forces DJ Adrian Cronauer showcases his genius comic talents, and director Barry Levinson surrounds him with a weighty story that satirizes war without undermining its gravity.

It's 1965 and the US troop build-up in Vietnam is gaining strength. The Saigon-based Armed Forces Radio Service broadcasts bland announcements, heavily censored news and anemic music. Airman Second Class Adrian Cronauer (Williams) arrives as the new DJ, and immediately shakes the place up. He launches into high energy and hilarious monologues, plays rock 'n' roll music, makes fun of the news and the military, and threatens to ignore the censors. His supervisors Lieutenant Hauk (Bruno Kirby) and Sergeant Major Dickerson (J.T. Walsh) are horrified, but the troops quickly become fans and the new DJ achieves celebrity status.

Despite the protestations of his assistant Private Eddie Garlick (Forest Whitaker), Cronauer spots local beauty Trinh (Chintara Sukapatana) and starts to romantically pursue her. He establishes a friendship with her brother Tuan (Tung Thanh Tran) and designates himself as an English language teacher to get closer to Trinh, and starts to understand the local culture and customs. But the war is getting more serious, bombings and bloodshed arrive in Saigon, and the military brass start to lose patience with Cronauer and his antics.

Good Morning, Vietnam is an often raucous comedy with a heavy heart. Director Barry Levinson constructs an anti-war film propelled by a counter-culture hero, but also manages to separate the soldiers from their superiors, and the politicians from the troops. The war is portrayed as both an idiotic policy and a massive troop deployment adventure, an army doing what it does in bumbling through a foreign land, while politicians blindly equate increased numbers with better odds of winning. Meanwhile there are civilians and families witnessing their land being torn apart, and its all playing out to a soundtrack of revolutionary rock.

After having struggled for several years to translate his undoubted talent into an appealing big screen presence, Good Morning, Vietnam is Williams' spectacular film career launch party. Once experienced, his performance as Cronauer is impossible to forget. He is a force of nature, his mostly improvised rapid fire delivery of sarcastic and biting humour from behind the broadcast microphone is unconstrained in content and intensity. Keeping up with Williams is exhilarating and exhausting, and the film derives boundless energy from his manic intensity.

But there is a lot more to the film than the central performance. The script by Mitch Markowitz, loosely inspired by the real Cronauer's experiences, mercilessly satirizes the military leadership, but in its second half is also a serious look at the US involvement in the Vietnam War. Cronauer's pursuit of Trinh, his brush with the culture, and his eventual wanderings within the labyrinths of Vietnam's jungles (he walks in circles) and Saigon's back alleys (he gets quickly disoriented) are unmistakable metaphors.

Like America, Cronauer may think he has all the answers, all the swagger and all the confidence to get what he wants, but the country, the city and the people are much more complex than he imagines, and with the best of intentions he stumbles into an unintended mess. Unlike the glib tripe served up by MASH, here war is of course a target, but the violence of war always hurts, and the conflict's long term implications are on display for those who wish to probe.

Williams needed straight men to withstand his barrage of humour, and the supporting cast deliver. Bruno Kirby and J.T. Walsh have rarely been better as Hauk and Dickerson, stiff military officers who suffer the most when Cronauer jerks their precious radio station towards pandemonium. Forest Whitaker represents the soldiers who quickly get and adopt the new DJ as one of their own, and celebrate his exuberance like a fresh breeze in the jungle heat.

Good Morning, Vietnam ends with revelations, hard truths, and a soft ball game. Some lessons will be learned by individuals on the ground, but there is less hope for the detached decision makers in offices. And as always, pieces of broken language and sports culture are left strewn on the dusty streets, sometimes the only useful legacy of warfare.

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Movie Review: Awakenings (1990)

A medical drama set in the world of catatonic patients, Awakenings benefits from an inspirational story and extraordinary performances, but does suffer from some excessive dosages of syrup.

In 1969, the socially awkward Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams) joins the staff of a New York Hospital and stumbles upon an almost forgotten wing where unresponsive patients in long-term catatonic states are cared for, including a man called Leonard (Robert De Niro). With help from nurse Eleanor Costello (Julie Kavner), Sayer discovers that the patients do respond to sudden stimuli. He suspects that their brains may still be functioning at some level, and investigates a potentially common cause for their condition: they all contracted encephalitis as children.

After consulting with expert Dr. Peter Ingham (Max Von Sydow), Sayer hypothesizes that the patients are suffering an extreme form of Parkinson's disease triggered by the encephalitis. When the new experimental drug L-Dopa becomes available, Sayer administers it on a trial basis to Leonard. It takes a strong dose, but Leonard is suddenly awakened, and appears to make a remarkable recovery. With Leonard exploring the world around him including befriending frequent hospital visitor Paula (Penelope Ann Miller), Sayer convinces the hospital administrators, including the skeptical Dr. Kaufman (John Heard), to similarly treat all the catatonic patients. But the euphoria of success is soon tempered by the emotional and physical implications of the medication.

Awakenings is based on a true episode from the life of British neurologist and author Oliver Sacks. Directed by Penny Marshall from a Steven Zaillian script, the film opens with Leonard as young boy gradually losing his ability to write coherently, before jumping ahead about 40 years. From then on Awakenings is almost entirely set at the nondescript hospital, a kind and gentle place where the catatonic patients receive decent care but are otherwise all but forgotten.

The film proceeds at a slow and steady pace, Sayer (a restrained Robin Williams performance) the one major character exploring his way through the hospital and other than Costello, finding few sympathetic ears. Kaufman and his colleagues are not too interested in doing much of anything for the long-term catatonic patients, and Sayer faces passive negativity in trying to overcome the inertia of a do-minimum treatment regime.

Once the L-Dopa medication is administered, Leonard awakens and becomes the second major presence. This gives the film a major boost as De Niro steps forward and gets to deploy his impressive skills as a man getting reacquainted with a world he unwillingly left as a young boy decades ago. Leonard then begins to struggle with unanticipated side-effects, and De Niro lets loose in an impressive display of physical discomfort and mental anguish. The combination of Williams and De Niro (who was nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award) both in top form is irresistible, and they carry Awakenings towards some impressive emotional peaks.

While the film has undoubted good intentions and plenty of heart, the lingering suspicion begins to creep in that the story is much ado about not very much. Sacks was adept at writing about his achievements, Hollywood is always good at manufacturing heroes and inflating accomplishments, and the two come together for a grand rendition of what ultimately was a limited success story, more a footnote than a breakthrough.

Which still takes nothing away from a well-constructed and human-centered drama, an uplifting but grounded story of hope and science briefly lifting a dark veil of despair.

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Movie Review: Jumanji (1995)

A fantasy adventure comedy aimed at the pre-teen market, Jumanji stays true to its simple objective of providing basic thrills and some laughs packaged into a straightforward life lesson.

In 1869 two frightened boys bury a mysterious board game deep into the ground in rural New England. One hundred years later the local town has expanded, the Parrish shoe company is the major employer, and at a construction site 12 year old Alan Parrish digs up the board game, called Jumanji, and takes it home. Alan gets into an argument with his stern dad Sam (Jonathan Hyde) about boarding school, before unpacking the game to play with his friend Sarah. The game has magical powers and in each round unleashes dangerous, jungle-themed challenges including rampaging animals. After an early dice throw Alan is consumed by the game and disappears into the virtual jungle world. Sarah is horrified and runs away, abandoning the game and leaving Alan to his unknown fate.

26 years later, orphans Judy and Peter Shepherd (Kirsten Dunst and Bradley Pierce) move into the abandoned Parrish house with their Aunt Nora (Bebe Neuwirth). They soon learn of the legend of the missing Alan Parrish, now rumoured to have been killed by his father. Judy and Peter find the Jumanji board and start to play, not knowing that they are actually continuing the game started by Alan and Sarah. Soon a dice throw frees Alan (Robin Williams) from the jungle. Realizing that the game needs to be played to its conclusion to roll back the chaos being unleashed, Alan goes looking for the grown up Sarah (Bonnie Hunt) to join him, Judy and Peter and finish the game.

Jumanji does not stray far from the simple message that life's journey is full of challenges to be confronted, quitting is not a good idea, and while some things are scary all can be overcome with dedication and persistence. It's an old-fashioned film which avoids irony and sarcasm, and instead offers up an engaging enough multi-generational story.

Director Joe Johnston, adapting the Chris Van Allsburg book, keeps the jungle-themed action and thrills on just the right side of not-too-scary for the intended audience, and although the wild animals and wilder plants unleashed by the game are menacing, no one ever seems to get seriously hurt. Humour is deployed in measured doses to regularly lighten the mood. David Alan Grier, as a former employee at the old Parrish shoe factory who has become a veteran police officer by the time Alan is freed from the game, is a main source of levity.

While the premise is fresh, as an adventure the film loses momentum rather quickly. It is soon predictably apparent that every throw of the dice will result in another calamity and another round of running around, until the dice is thrown again and the process is repeated. The special effects are from the early CGI era and have not aged particularly well. The images of rampaging animals are clunkily superimposed onto the live action, and to all but the youngest eyes, the rather inept outcome is a distraction.

Robin Williams is restrained by his standards but still offers plenty of dynamism. In one her earliest prominent roles, Kirsten Dunst as Judy offers the unruffled assurance of a young teen beginning to gain the sometimes useful courage of youth.

Jumanji is a safari-lite, a harmless romp with the wild animals to gain wisdom in suburbia.

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Movie Review: RV (2006)

A family comedy that is marginally better than it could have been, RV offers little that is new but does ride star Robin Williams' talent to some funny moments.

Bob Munro (Williams) is struggling to hold his typical suburban family together. Teenaged daughter Cassie (JoJo Levesque) is in full blown rebellion mode, and her young brother Carl (Josh Hutcherson) is struggling with self-esteem issues due to his relatively short stature. Bob takes his wife Jamie (Cheryl Hines) for granted as he slaves away at a corporate job, working for heartless boss Todd (Will Arnett). When Todd demands yet another immediate report and a client meeting in Colorado, Bob decides to not tell his family that he again has to put work first, and instead converts the family's Hawaii vacation to an RV trip with a fortuitous destination of Colorado.

Renting a garish green RV, the deeply disgruntled family hits the road with Bob hoping to secretly steal away work moments. The Munros soon run into trouble with their RV's plumbing system, and are helped by the eternally happy Travis and Mary Jo Gornicke (Jeff Daniels and Kristin Chenoweth). The Gornickes are a seemingly simple family who have made RVing their life, and as far and fast as Bob and Cassie try to get away from them, the Gornickes always seem to be there. With Bob's attempts to combine work with the vacation stymied at every turn, the family trip threatens to implode into a full-blown disaster.

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and written by Geoff Rodkey, RV is as predictable as a road trip comedy can be. A stressed out family is forced by cramped circumstances to reconnect, rediscovers the meaning of life, and Dad recalibrates his priorities, all in a brisk 99 minutes of running time. The movie's destination is clear from the opening few minutes, and it's just a matter of how many laughs Williams can generate along the well-marked road.

He achieves a success rate of roughly 50 percent. Some moments are funny, if not quite original. Bob tangles with the RV's backed-up sewer system, and it's quite obvious where the all the yucky human waste will end up, but Williams makes the scene hilarious. A battle with a family of raccoons also registers on the funny meter. Less successful are the tiresome runaway excursions through the Colorado wilderness, and the numerous encounters with the Gornickes are quickly tiresome. Williams does occasionally let loose with some ad-libbed riffing, and again is only partially successful.

The supporting cast members are stuck in singular notes. After establishing their characters' identities the likes of Jeff Daniels, Cheryl Hines and Kristin Chenoweth have little to work with in the way of development. Singer JoJo Levesque emerges with the most prominent performance as pouty daughter Cassie, overflowing with enough adverse attitude to flood the RV in a swamp of negativity. Will Arnett plays the inevitable oily corporation man, the mortal enemy of a healthy family life.

RV is unable to negotiate any sharp or original turns, but it does offer the snug comforts of home and the still potent talents of a master comic.

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The Movies Of Robin Williams

All movies starring Robin Williams and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

The World According To Garp (1982)

Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

Dead Poets Society (1989)

Awakenings (1990)

Dead Again (1991)

Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)

Nine Months (1995)

To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar (1995, uncredited)

Jumanji (1995)

Good Will Hunting (1997)

Patch Adams (1998)

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001, voice only)

Insomnia (2002)

RV (2006)

August Rush (2007)

The Big Wedding (2013)

The Butler (2013)

The Face Of Love (2013)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: August Rush (2007)

A modern day fairy tale, August Rush unabashedly celebrates pure love and the magical powers of music.

In New York City of 1995, Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell) is a cellist and Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is the lead singer in an Irish rock band. They meet at a party, it's love at first sight, they spend one night together and then separate. Fate keeps them apart, but Lyla is pregnant. Months later, an accident leaves Layla unconscious, the baby boy is delivered, and her father (William Sadler) hands him to social services. When Layla awakens, she is told that the baby died. Both Layla and Louis are miserable without each other, and abandon their musical dreams.

Eleven years later their son Evan Taylor (Freddie Highmore) drifts away from a boys' shelter where he has spent his life and finds his way to Manhattan. Lyla is a music teacher in Chicago, and Louis is a businessman in San Francisco. Evan has music in his blood, and finds musical inspiration in all the sounds that surround him. He falls in with a group of street musicians controlled and exploited by Maxwell "The Wizard" Wallace (Robin Williams). Evan demonstrates incredible ability with the guitar, and The Wizard starts to imagine the riches that can come his way. He renames the boy August Rush to make him more difficult to find. By now Lyla is frantically looking for Evan thanks to her father's death bed confession, and Louis is desperately searching for Layla.

Directed by Kirsten Sheridan (daughter of Jim), August Rush is a sweet story, unapologetically borrowing elements from Oliver Twist, and bathed in the soft light of eternal optimism. Evan is a child prodigy on par with Mozart in his ability to play and compose music, and just when the time is right Lyla and Louis follow their hearts, then their instincts and finally the music to arrive at the happy ending in Central Park.

As a package, it is almost impossible not to fall in love with the film's simple intentions and trust in pure innocence. This is not a film where common sense or logic need to prevail; rather, this is a place to reflect on the ethereal qualities of music, the silent and mutual attraction of souls destined to be together, and a mother's determined search for the son she never knew. The music score by Mark Mancina and Hans Zimmer adds to the mood of poignant anticipation, while John Mathieson's cinematography makes good use of the New York City locations, with Washington Square particularly prominent.

Lyla, Louis and Evan clearly belong together, and spend the film overcoming obstacles to arrive at the same point in time and place. In true fable fashion all three are pure of heart and filled with nothing but good intentions, and the actors perform accordingly. Freddie Highmore exudes innocent bliss and a spirit naturally intertwined with music. Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Meyers are headstrong, passionate, and tender in their pursuit of the love that slipped through their fingers. Robin Williams makes for a worthy antagonist, channeling his inner Fagin as he heartlessly profits from child labour. Terrence Howard rounds out the cast as a social worker trying to help Evan.

As with all the best fairy tales, August Rush exists in a place where good will triumph over evil, love will survive and thrive, and the human spirit remains positive and optimistic, all set to great music and glowing in artistic light.

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