Film:  August Rush
Studio:    CJ Entertainment; Warner Brothers Pictures
Director:  Kirsten Sheridan
Principal Actors:  Freddie Highmore, Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Robin Williams, Terrence Howard
Release:  2007; On DVD release March 11, 2008
Film length: 100 minutes
Rating:  PG for some thematic elements, mild violence, and language 

5 Stars (and then some)

Reviewer:  Deborah Ground Buckner

Sometimes, a rating of five stars just isn't enough.  August Rush is a beautiful story of music, love, and belonging.  It sweeps a viewer into a fairytale in which the unbelievable becomes instantly believable, and the viewer knows-somehow-everything has to come out all right in the end, but can't wait to see how the story will unfold.

Freddie Highmore, born in 1992, already has an impressive filmography, having appeared as Charlie in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Pantalaimon in The Golden Compass, and dual roles in The Spiderwick Chronicles to name just a few.  Here, he is spellbinding as Evan, a young boy living in the Walden County Home for Boys where he has been for "11 years and 16 days-I've been counting."  Sharing a belief of many orphaned or abandoned children, Evan is convinced someday he will find his parents, and the older boys bully him relentlessly for his faithfulness.  They can't understand that Evan has a special gift-he hears the music.  "The music I can hear is everywhere-it's all around us."  Evan knows if he could learn to play the music he hears, he could find his family.

Through flashbacks, the story of a young couple is revealed.  Lyla (Keri Russell-Felicity, Waitress) is a cellist, a rising star in the music world.  One night, after a successful concert, her path crosses that of Louis (Jonathan Rhys Meyers--recently The Tudors), a singer in an Irish band.  With tragic twists in the spirit of Romeo and Juliet, they are pulled apart, unaware of the child they created.

Evan finds a kindred spirit in Mr. Jeffries (Terrence Howard), a social worker who also seems to hear the music, but the bond is not strong enough to keep Evan from escaping from the home and out into the dangerous world of New York City.  There, in the noises of the city so often used to conjure fear and chaos, Evan finds music-in the clacking of the subway, the honking of car horns, the bleating of police whistles, the jingling of bicycle bells. 

Following the music, he happens upon Arthur (Leon G. Thomas III), a young street musician, a modern Artful Dodger who takes Evan to the shelter of a New World Fagin known as "Wizard" (Robin Williams).  Like Dickens' character, Wizard also has a fleet of young boys at his command.  Rather than training them as pickpockets, he sends them out as street musicians, all of whom turn in their daily earnings to their master.  Wizard is bright and crafty, enough to see something special in Evan, a ticket to bigger things. 

While Evan rises as a musician, Lyla and Louis drift on through their lives, in and out of music.  Watching different life paths through their trials and hurdles and seeing how they come together is like seeing a master weaver at work creating a beautiful tapestry.  The screenplay by Nick Castle and James V. Hart, based on a story by Nick Castle and Paul Castro, is a celebration of life. 

When an artfully woven story combines with brilliant performances, against the backdrop of beautiful music (score by Mark Mancina) it takes one's breath away.  This is a film I'll be watching again and again.