In spite of my suggestion that we see Beowulf, the girls and I went to see August Rush tonight. It's cute. It's incredibly sappy. It's entirely impossibly (telepathy-inducing rhapsody, anyone?) and completely predictable. It also has a few choke-up moments, so as a chick movie, it's not completely hopeless. Nevertheless, something about the plot had been nagging me since August, also known as Evan, was first shown in the boys' home. When I saw Robin Williams, in a performance some have described as channeling Bono, playing a street musician and running a "home" for street musicians in training, it hit me: August Rush is nothing more than a retelling of Oliver Twist with a hefty dose of cellos and Irish rockers thrown in. Granted, the new ending is slightly happier, but that's Hollywood for you. And with a musical prodigy and the aforementioned telepathy-inducing rhapsody involved, how could you have an ending that is anything but happily contrived?
Bottom line: cute way to spend two hours, if you can suspend all disbelief and accept that the orphaned spawn of a cellist and an Irish rocker can learn to play any instrument - and write music - on sight. Dickens fans may gripe. And for all our sakes, I'm really glad Robin Williams' earrings aren't genuine.
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