August Rush

            August Rush is a romantic musical drama movie released on 21st November 2007. It is directed by Kirsten Sheridan. The main stars featured here are Freddie Highmore, Keri Russell, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

August Rush is a story about a music prodigy. It all begins when Lyla (Keri Russell), a famous cellist and Louis (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a guitarist and vocalist at a club, meet and fall in love with each other when following the sound of the music. Because of having different lives, they have to separate and not seeing each other again. However, Lyla is pregnant. She gives birth to their baby boy, destined to be a music prodigy, named Evan Taylor (Freddie Highmore). Unfortunately, her father sends the little Evan away to an orphanage without her knowing about it. Her father says that the baby is dead to cover his doing. Eleven years later, Evan believes that his parents are still alive and goes to New York to search for them. From here is the musical journey of Evan really begins.

Firstly, I want to talk about the plus points of the movie. Let me start off by saying that August Rush is a music themed movie, and I love music so much! This movie gives me awe. The story has this kind of fairy tale element to it. The special ability of Evan to follow the sounds of music everywhere he goes is the evidence. Furthermore, the music throughout the whole story really keeps me interested to watch it until the end. The guitar playing is superb! The music is just sounds original; I refer to classical pieces only. From classical to gospel, and typical rock band’s music, it has it all! The acting of the players is good. It is not the best, but still deserves two thumbs up!

Now let’s move on to the minus points of the movie. Honestly, I think there is nothing bad or wrong with the movie. It’s just two minor, very small complaints of me with the storyline of the movie. The progression of the story is very predictable. At first, I am not really understand what’s going on in the story when the scene suddenly shifts to the two lovers that’s actually Evan’s parents in the past, until the baby Evan is born. From here on, the story is predictably a typical of family drama story. The next thing I want to complaint here is the fast changing scenes. It’s not a bad thing, but for me, it’s sometimes hard to tell what’s going on when the scene suddenly shifts to different time and locations. However, this is what makes the movie still interesting even though it’s typical. There is a nice appeal to it that keeps me want to know what magic that Evan has next.

Finally, I highly recommend this to everybody! This movie deserves a place in your collection. Watch it and experience the music journey of a real prodigy! What a great movie it is!

            Written by: Widyanto Gunadi/1401075164