August Rush
August Rush is the unusual title to a movie about the power and beauty of music.
A budding classical viola artist and a raucus singer/guitar player in his own rock band meet at a party and have an intimate tryst in New York City one night. She becomes pregnant with his child, but her dad refuses to allow the 17-year old to see the guitar player again.
He is crest-fallen, thinking he has misread her love for him. She retreats into a semi-meaningless job and they quickly lose track of each other. The dad forces the young woman to give up her child to an adoption agency; the boy years later at age 10 or so ends up in a group home/orphanage in upstate New York.
The boy is in tune with music due to the genes he's gained from his music-loving parents. He believes against all odds he can locate them.
Ditching the miserable place he's been in, he heads for the big city to the south. He's invisible on the crowded streets until an authoritarian street musician with a band of urchins, played by Robin Williams, ropes him in. Williams exploits the boy's newly discovered guitar ability by making him play on the street for change.
As luck would have it (!) his real father, in search of the mom who's been convinced to play her classical instrument in an upcoming Central Park concert, stumbles upon the boy playing on the street and the two strike up an impromptu song together... just like they were always made to play together.
Later the boy is discovered to be a musical genius and sent to Julliard Music Academy where he excels so greatly that he's to conduct the classical concert session after his mom plays.
The guitar-playing dad sees a poster for the concert, comes up to the mom afterward in the crowd and the two mystically watch their son conduct the orchestra.
They are drawn together, almost Zen-like, by the musical vibes connecting them and the three are united.
What does this mean in everyday, non-mystical, non-Zen terms? I think music does connect the soul with other like-minded souls... soul-mates, if you will. It's healing and joy-producing. Could the story have actually ocurred? Possibly. They had to stretch it some, but New York City's Times Square is filled with runaways and street urchins, more often they are caught by drug-dealers and pimps, unfortunately, and enslaved that way. Most of those children, though, are running AWAY from their parents, not toward them.
But this makes the story all that more enjoyable and heart-warming. And all the music, rock, acoustic, and classical, is well-done. All the characters, including the adventurous boy and the mean-spirited Robin Williams, do excellent acting jobs.
I'm a sucker for happy endings. This one is needed in a time of terror, hate and disunity.