It comes across as silly, cloying, and cheesy. Unfortunately, director Sheridan proves unable to make us believe in this. Lyla and Louis both play instruments and August sees and hears music in everyday actions. It isn't coincidence that Lyla and Louis meet and their single coupling results in August. Eventually, he runs away and ends up on the streets of New York, where his amazing musical talents blossom under the sometimes cruel tutelage of Wizard (Robin Williams).Īugust Rush would like us to believe that some mystical Force (as the characters describe it, it sounds a lot like the one in Star Wars) binds everyone together. Meanwhile, that boy, who will eventually go by the name of August Rush (Freddie Highmore), ends up in an orphanage, where he is bullied. Alone and lonely, these two sad souls live their lives, not knowing there is someone out there connected to them. Nine months later, Lyla gave birth to a bouncing baby boy but her father (William Sadler) gave the child up for adoption after telling his daughter the infant had not survived the birth. ![]() 12 years ago, Juliard-trained cellist Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell) and rock singer Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) shared a magical night together, but circumstances parted them the next day even though they were clearly meant for one another. The movie is about how fate contrives to bring three people together - "contrives" being a key word. ![]() It's one of many things that August Rush does wrong. Instead of giving us the moment that a mawkish melodrama like this demands, we are presented with a diluted and minimally satisfying shadow of the moment. August Rush is constructed on a foundation of interconnected failures, the biggest of which comes at the very end. It's not difficult to understand what director Kirsten (daughter of Jim) Sheridan is attempting and equally easy to see that she doesn't achieve her goal. The film intends to be a modern day fable about fate and music and Dickensian characters but the sloppiness of the script and haphazard nature of the direction turns everything rancid. There are times when it tips the scales of absurdity and becomes almost comical. ![]() August Rush isn't just a bad movie - it's an aggressively bad movie.
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