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August Rush

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2007 American film
August Rush
Theatrical release poster
Directed byKirsten Sheridan
Screenplay byNick Castle
James V. Hart
Story byPaul Castro
Nick Castle
Produced byRichard Barton Lewis
StarringFreddie Highmore
Keri Russell
Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Terrence Howard
Robin Williams
William Sadler
CinematographyJohn Mathieson
Edited byWilliam Steinkamp
Music byMark Mancina
Production
companies		Southpaw Entertainment
CJ Entertainment
Distributed byWarner Bros. Pictures (North America)
Odyssey Entertainment (International)
Release date
  • November 21, 2007 (2007-11-21)
Running time114 minutes
CountriesUnited States
South Korea
LanguageEnglish
Budget$25 million
Box office$65.3 million

August Rush is a 2007 musical drama film directed by Kirsten Sheridan and produced by Richard Barton Lewis. The screenplay is by Nick Castle and James V. Hart, with a story by Paul Castro and Castle. It involves an 11-year-old musical prodigy living in an orphanage who runs away to New York City. He begins to unravel the mystery of who he is, while his mother is searching for him and his father is searching for her. The many sounds and rhythms he hears throughout his journey culminate in a major instrumental composition that concludes with his score, "August's Rhapsody".

Plot

In 1995, Lyla Novacek is a cellist studying at the Juilliard School. Louis Connelly is the lead singer of an Irish rock band. They meet and have a one-night stand but are unable to maintain contact. Lyla discovers that she is pregnant. Following an argument with her overbearing father, she is struck by a car, forcing her to prematurely give birth. While Lyla is unconscious, her father secretly puts the baby up for adoption, telling Lyla that her son died.

Eleven years later, the baby, named Evan Taylor, is living in a boys' orphanage where he is assigned to a social worker named Richard Jeffries. Evan is a musical genius and displays savant-like abilities and perfect pitch. Convinced that his parents will find him, he runs away to New York City, "following the music" with the hope that it will lead him to his family.

He finds a boy named Arthur busking in Washington Square Park and follows him to his home in a condemned theater, where Evan is introduced to "Wizard" Wallace, a vagrant musician who teaches homeless, orphaned, and runaway children to be street performers. Wizard gives Evan a spot in Washington Square Park, assigns him the stage name "August Rush" and tries to market him to clubs. When he sees the posters that Jeffries has placed for the runaway Evan, Wizard destroys them, hoping to keep Evan for his own gain.

Louis now lives in San Francisco as a talent agent, while Lyla is a music teacher in Chicago. Louis reconnects with his brothers and decides to try to find Lyla. Lyla is called to her father's deathbed, where he confesses that her son is alive. She then abandons his father to his fate and immediately begins to hunt for her son.

Arriving at Lyla's apartment in Chicago, Louis talks to one of her neighbors, who erroneously says that she is on her honeymoon. Despairing, he ends up in New York, where he regroups his band. After Jeffries meets Wizard and Arthur on the street and becomes suspicious, the police raid the derelict theater in which Wizard and his children are living. Evan (now "August") takes refuge in a church, where he befriends a little girl named Hope, who introduces him to the piano and written music. Hope brings August and his abilities to the attention of the parish pastor, who takes August to the Juilliard school, where he impresses the faculty. A rhapsody takes shape from August's notes and homework.

In New York, Lyla goes to Jeffries's office, and Jeffries identifies August as her son. While looking for him, she starts playing the cello again and accepts an offer to perform with the New York Philharmonic at a series of concerts in Central Park. August is selected to perform at the same concert. However, Wizard interrupts the rehearsal and, claiming to be his father, pulls August out of the school.

On the day of the concert, August returns to his spot in Washington Square, while Wizard makes plans to smuggle him around the country to perform. August meets Louis and, unaware of their blood relationship, they have an impromptu guitar duet. That evening, with help from Arthur, August escapes from Wizard through the subway and heads for his concert. Louis, after his own performance with his reunited band, sees Lyla's name on a banner and also heads for the park. Jeffries finds a flyer for "August Rush" with a picture and goes to the concert.

August arrives in time to conduct his rhapsody, which attracts Lyla and Louis to the audience, where they reunite. August finishes his rhapsody and, as he turns to discover his parents, smiles, knowing that he has been right all along.

Cast

Music

The final number with Lyla and Louis begins with Lyla playing the Adagio-Moderato from Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E Minor.

Except for "Dueling Guitars", all of August's guitar pieces are played by American guitarist-composer Kaki King. King's hands are used in closeups for August Rush.

Composer Mark Mancina spent more than a year and a half composing the score of August Rush. "The heart of the story is how we respond and connect through music. It's about this young boy who believes that he's going to find his parents through his music. That's what drives him." The final theme of the movie was composed first. "That way I could take bits and pieces of the ending piece and relate it to the things that are happening in (August's) life. All of the themes are pieces of the puzzle, so at the end it means something because you've been subliminally hearing it throughout the film." The score was recorded at the Todd-AO Scoring Stage and the Eastwood Scoring Stage at Warner Bros.

Production

In March 2003, it was announced Nick Castle had been hired to write August Rush from an idea by producer Richard B. Lewis and screenwriter Paul Castro for Ovation Entertainment. In September 2004, Kirsten Sheridan was announced as director, as well as providing a rewrite of the script.

Reception

August Rush received mostly unfavorable reviews from film critics. The film holds a 37% approval rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 122 reviews, with an average rating of 4.83/10. The site's consensus reads: "Though featuring a talented cast, August Rush cannot overcome the flimsy direction and schmaltzy plot." On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 38 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".

In a review by USA Today, Claudia Puig commented, "August Rush will not be for everyone, but it works if you surrender to its lilting and unabashedly sentimental tale of evocative music and visual poetry."

The Hollywood Reporter reviewed the film positively, writing, "The story is about musicians and how music connects people, so the movie's score and songs, created by composers Mark Mancina and Hans Zimmer, give poetic whimsy to an implausible tale."

Pam Grady of the San Francisco Chronicle called the film "an inane musical melodrama". Grady said that "the entire story is ridiculous" and that the coincidences pile on, behavior and motivations defy logic, and the characters are so thinly drawn that most of the cast is at a loss"

Edward Douglas of comingsoon.net said that it "does not take long for the movie to reveal itself as an extremely contrived and predictable movie that tries too hard to tug on the heartstrings".

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the movie three stars out of 4, calling it "a movie drenched in sentimentality, but it's supposed to be. The movie also came to a very sudden end, leaving it unfinished."

A few critics suggested that the film is essentially a musical adaptation of Dickens's Oliver Twist.

Awards

Despite the mostly unfavorable reception, August Rush was praised for its music. The song "Raise It Up" was nominated for Best Original Song at the 80th Academy Awards, but lost to Once.

Stage adaptation

A musical theater adaptation of August Rush premiered on May 3, 2019, at the Paramount Theatre in Aurora, Illinois. The book was written by Glen Berger, the music was composed by Mark Mancina, and the lyrics were written by both Berger and Mancina. The play was directed by John Doyle.

References

  1. Marshall, Lee (21 October 2007). "August Rush". Screen Daily. Retrieved 15 August 2021.
  2. ^ Garcia, Cathy Rose (16 January 2008). "Augusts Success in Korea Surprises US Producer". South Korea: The Korea Times. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  3. @blobyblo (15 November 2019). "My hobby of popping up in the most random places continues.
    First, I appeared as a 9 yr old boy in a hollywood film called August Rush.
    Then, my artwork appeared in a Justin Bieber video.
    And now, I'm seated amongst Star Wars / Marvel experts theorizing about Yoda. 🀣"     (Tweet). Retrieved 30 November 2020 – via Twitter.
  4. κΉ€, 민지 (15 November 2020). ν• λ¦¬μš°λ“œ λͺ…μž‘ β€˜μ–΄κ±°μŠ€νŠΈ λŸ¬μ‰¬β€™μ— β€˜3초 μΆœμ—°β€™ ν–ˆμ—ˆλ˜ β€˜μ „μ°Έμ‹œβ€™ κ΅¬ν˜œμ„  (μ˜μƒ). μΈμ‚¬μ΄νŠΈ (in Korean). South Korea: λ‰΄μŠ€1코리아. Retrieved 16 November 2020.
  5. Crisafulli, Chuck & Graff, Gary. "And The Best Original Song Oscar Nominees Are..." Billboard. Retrieved 2010-09-30.
  6. Crisafulli, Chuck. "After a year and a half, the 'August' pieces fit". Billboard. Retrieved April 25, 2012.
  7. Dan Goldwasser. "Scoring Session Photo Gallery from August Rush". ScoringSessions.com. Archived from the original on 24 February 2008. Retrieved 2008-02-29.
  8. "Ovation wins bid for 'Road'". Variety. Retrieved November 17, 2023.
  9. "Southpaw slate gets 'Rush' job". Variety. Retrieved November 17, 2023.
  10. ^ "August Rush β€” Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on 24 November 2007. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
  11. ^ "August Rush (2007): Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 25 November 2007. Retrieved 2007-11-27.
  12. Puig, Claudia (2007-11-23). "Lilting 'August Rush' is poetry in emotion". USA Today. Retrieved 2008-02-29.
  13. Honeycutt, Kirk (November 8, 2007). "August Rush". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 2008-05-06. Retrieved 2008-02-29.
  14. Pam Grady (2007-11-21). "Review: Orphan has a song in his heart in 'August Rush'". San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on 24 November 2007. Retrieved 2007-11-27.
  15. "August Rush - Review Comments". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on 2013-09-27. Retrieved 2012-08-13.
  16. Roger Ebert (2007-11-21). "August Rush". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on 24 November 2007. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
  17. Smith, Sid (2007-11-21). "August Rush (Oliver Twist reset in N.Y.) β€” 2 stars". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on 2007-12-12. Retrieved 2007-12-15. Turn to the master, Charles Dickens, or better yet, update and recycle him. Such must have been the thinking behind August Rush, a thinly disguised retelling of Oliver Twist, transplanted to contemporary New York and sweetened by a theme of the healing magic of music.
  18. Covert, Colin (2007-11-20). "Movie review: Romanticism trumps reason in Rush". Star Tribune. Archived from the original on 10 December 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-15. If Charles Dickens were alive today, he might be writing projects like August Rush, the unabashedly sentimental tale of a plucky orphan lad who falls in with streetwise urchins as he seeks the family he ought to have. Come to think of it, Dickens did write that one, and called it Oliver Twist.
  19. Jones, Chris (May 1, 2019). "August Rush Is a New Broadway-Bound Musical – First at the Paramount in Aurora". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved May 4, 2019.
  20. Mielke, Randall G. (April 8, 2019). "August Rush, Paramount's First World Premiere Broadway Series Show, to Open April 24". Aurora Beacon-News. Retrieved May 4, 2019.
  21. Vitello, Barbara (April 21, 2019). "Acclaimed Director Helms August Rush Premiere at Aurora's Paramount". Daily Herald. Retrieved May 4, 2019.

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