Rating: 2.75 of 5  

Speaking strictly from a film point of view, August Rush wasn’t that great. The plot was thin, the characters, though interesting, were all woefully underdeveloped. My favorite moment of character development is when Louis is yelling at his brother and he says Hit me. I’m suffocating. It was so honest. There’s a lot of music, and it’s good music. But it’s also sort of a cheat because music can access our emotions in ways that nothing else can – the music sort of tries to be the story and it can’t quite manage that feat.

But the heart in this movie just grabbed me. I loved Lyla and her heart. I liked Mr. Jeffries who wanted so badly for things to be better and to take care of everyone. I wanted Louis to be happy. I wanted Evan to be found. I really liked that it was his father that helped him toward the end, his real father that showed him the way back to his music. I loved when Evan told the woman at Julliard about the music he heard: It’s like they’re calling me. Writing down the music is my way of calling back. Because that’s the moment that resonated for me at the end. His music called to them and brought them all together. I haven’t cried that hard at the end of a movie since We Are Marshall.

The thing I wanted, though, was just a bit more closure. I wanted Lyla to lean over to Louis and tell him that Evan was their son. I mean, of course you can infer that she told him and they all lived happily ever after. I just sort of needed to see that moment. Because Louis went the whole story not knowing that he even had a son, so when he was watching Evan at the end, he didn’t know. I wanted him to be as complete in that moment as Lyla was.

I did like the sort of fairy tale aspect to the story, the way people aren’t always who they appear to be, that moment of absolute delight and wonder at the end bringing to life the harmonic connection between all living beings.

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