August Rush: C-

Music in a visual medium is a tricky thing; it can be over-used or underwhelming: a club to browbeat audiences or a barely noticed whisper in the background. Yet, it should never be seen as an ineffable, stifling presence. It should lilt and flow, or stirke and tear asunder, or soothe and placate, or sadden and wrench. It should not, I repeat should not, be a key plot piece in an endlessly trite, long-winded exploration of music in the service of Been There, Done That. Director Kirsten Sheridan and writers Nick Castle & James V. Hart pillage through great masters of their respective forms like Charles Dickens (for the occasional Oliver Twist twist) for a fairy tale that is short on fairy - that is, wondrous, emotional connection - and long on tale - that is, snail-paced discourse and voice-over that rarely even comes together within itself.

August Rush has a fascinating beginning, and it almost tricks you into believing the magical, improbable, conceit at its heart will win out in yours. This is not to be the case. Sheridan fills the screen with music and soft lighting, an attempt to transform the everyday into the same realm of music and existence that Evan Taylor (Freddie Highmore, sucked dry and plastered into a stick-figure role) must live in. The opening scene, in which Evan "conducts" the winds through a field of grass, does nearly that. And then the story starts, and stuff starts falling flat. First there is a one-night stand between Louis (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and Lyla (Keri Russell), that ends in tears and angst...and a baby, given up for secret adoption by Lyla's father (William Sadler, way more wamrly paternal in Roswell). And then there is the aftermath, in which we the audience are asked to believe that such a sweet night as the one shared by the Irish lad and his lassie could warrant such goopy melodrama as this. I'm not buying it, and neither should you.

Or, if you feel for some strange reason so compelled, Rush makes that an up-hill battle. Performances bend and transmogrify before your very eyes (Highmore himself is the perfect, irritating example, and Robin Williams, as a modern-day Fagin, falls not far behind) into sickening caricature, and the narrative keeps turning tricks that are both wildly sentimental and not even vaguely related to reality. (Are we really to believe that Evan, stage-name "August Rush," beat out all the other child prodigies to suddenly be enrolled in Juliard? Oh right, the movie doesn't mention them.) What's more, the tone is endlessly condescending: a cousin to the cloying self-help nonsense of The Martian Child. In both cases a hard-knock lad with possibly extraordinary abilities teaches the surrounding adults the merits of just letting him do his own thing - regardless of mental, emotional, or physical well-being. Bah!

But I digress. Kirsten Sheridan is the daughter of Jim Sheridan, a director famed for his up-from-the-streets sensibilities turned masterful storytelling. In the latter's case, the quirks and kinks of the human condition are not fodder for a treachly flame, but a rarity and testament all their own. In the former's mind, surely it is the opposite: cute kids must become Cute Kids, all must be resolved happily (if suddenly), and common sense must inevitably be strangled by its loopy second-cousin Hysterial Sentiment. There is heart here, admittedly, but also a subtle brand of cynicism that balks at the modern notion of social etiquette, etc. "No," August Rush screams, "do not mock or hate our cute and cuddly little man. Rather, adore him for his triumph and compassion." Well if this is what his compassion looks like, displayed in a leaky fable like this, then no thank you.