August Rush is a 2007
drama film directed by
Kirsten Sheridan and written by
Paul Castro,
Nick Castle, and
James V. Hart, and produced by Richard Barton Lewis.
Deciding to run away to
New York City,
musical prodigy Evan Taylor begins to unravel the mystery of who he is.
All the while Evan Taylor's mother is searching for him whilst his
father searching is searching for her.
Plot
In 1995, Lyla Novacek (
Keri Russell) is a cellist in an
orchestra under strict rule of her father (
William Sadler). Louis Connelly (
Jonathan Rhys Meyers)
is the lead singer of "The Connelly Brothers", an Irish rock band. Lyla
and Louis have a chance meeting during a party after their respective
concerts, and sleep together on a rooftop under a full moon, while a man
with a harmonica and guitar plays an instrumental version of "
Moondance" on the street below.
After a rude awakening by Louis's bandmates, Lyla returns to her angered father in the morning and heads back to
Chicago.
Louis waits for Lyla as they had agreed, before eventually heading to
the hotel Lyla was staying at, but Lyla doesn't acknowledge him. He
turns to his music in the hopes she'll hear it and reconnect with him,
but becomes discouraged. Meanwhile, Lyla eventually realizes she is
pregnant. After an argument with her father regarding the baby and her
career as a cellist, Lyla runs out into the street and is struck by a
car. Due to the accident trauma, she gives birth prematurely, and her
father secretly puts her son up for adoption, forging her signature on
the paperwork and allowing her to believe that the baby died as a result
of the accident.
Eleven years later, young Evan Taylor (
Freddie Highmore)
is living in a boys' orphanage outside New York City. Evan has the
savant-like ability to hear music wherever he is. He is convinced that
his parents will find him, which makes him the target of ridicule among
the older kids at the orphanage. He meets Richard Jefferies (
Terrence Howard), a social worker who gives Evan his card. Soon after, Evan runs away to
New York City,
"following the music" in the hope it will lead him to his family. In
the process, he loses Jeffries' card, and wanders the city until finding
Arthur (
Leon Thomas III) performing in Washington Square Park.
Louis now lives in
San Francisco,
having left his band on the same night as Lyla's accident. He has a
chance meeting with one of his former bandmates, and is invited to his
birthday party. Louis is hesitant because he has not spoken to his
brother Marshall (
Alex O'Loughlin)
since the band broke up, but he ultimately chooses to go. At the party,
his brother is playing clips of the band performing. Louis confronts
his brother and the words come to blows, and Louis's girlfriend (who
realizes she never knew anything about who Louis used to be or really
is), leaves him.
Lyla now lives in Chicago with a violinist roommate, and also gave up
performing, but teaches music to children privately. Her friend and
roommate encourages her to rejoin the New York Philharmonic, but Lyla is
unconvinced. She is called to her father's deathbed, and he admits to
her that her child survived the accident and is alive somewhere in New
York. Upon hearing this, Lyla abandons her father to his fate and
decides to return to New York.
Evan has since followed Arthur back to his home in a condemned theater, and has been taken in by Maxwell "Wizard" Wallace (
Robin Williams),
a vagrant musician who teaches homeless children music and employs them
as street performers. He was the one playing the guitar and harmonica
during Louis and Lyla's night on the rooftop. Evan tries playing
Wizard's prize guitar "Roxanne", and while his initial approach is
unconventional, he is so good that Wizard gives him his old spot in
Washington Square Park,
and Roxanne, both of which had until then been Arthur's. Wizard also
gives Evan the stage name "August Rush" and begins trying to market him
to clubs and event promoters. Seeing the posters that Jeffries has
posted for the runaway Evan, Wizard destroys all the ones he finds,
hoping to keep Evan and his gift for his own gain. Arthur comes to
resent being replaced by August as Wizard's favorite.
Louis decides to reconnect with Lyla, and after learning her full
name and whereabouts, flies out to Chicago to find her. He waits for
several hours at the door to her apartment. When he asks one of the
occupants of her apartment where Lyla is, the woman mixes up Lyla and
her roommate, and says she's on her honeymoon in New York. Louis,
crushed, ends up in New York and decides get his old band back together.
After a meeting on the street between Jeffries, Wizard and Arthur,
the derelict theatre Wizard and his "children" are living in is raided
by the police. Wizard distracts them and allows August to escape, with a
warning not to tell anyone his real name. After evading the police,
Evan takes refuge in an inner-city church where Hope, a young girl at
the church (
Jamia Simone Nash)
introduces him to the piano, and to written notes. He picks up this
skill so quickly that Hope, seeing her room covered in August's
handwritten music and hearing him play the church's pipe organ, gets the
attention of the parish pastor (
Mykelti Williamson), who enrolls August at the
Juilliard School.
August's nonconformist approach to the curriculum nevertheless
impresses the Juilliard staff, and a rhapsody begins to take shape from
his notes and homework assignments.
Once in New York, Lyla goes to Jeffries' office for information and,
after initially being turned away by the desk clerk, eventually meets
with Jeffries, who is able to identify Evan as her son. She decides to
stay in New York to search for him, renting a studio apartment in the
city. She also decides to take up the cello again, and accepts the offer
she'd been given to perform with the Philharmonic at a series of
concerts in Central Park.
August's gift is considered astounding among all at
Juilliard,
and he is selected to perform the rhapsody he's been composing at the
same park concert as Lyla, the youngest student ever selected for this
honor. Wizard intrudes during a rehearsal and, claiming to be his father
and under threat of revealing August's real name, pulls August out of
the school, putting him back in Washington Square playing Roxanne and
planning to send him all over the country.
On the day of the outdoor symphony concert, and also of Louis's first
performance after rejoining his old band, August is still forbidden by
Wizard to attend his own concert. August meets Louis, who is wandering
through the park with his own guitar, and they play together, neither of
them knowing their blood relationship to the other. August tells him of
his dilemma and Louis tells him not to give up on his music, and that
if he had a concert, he wouldn't miss it for the world. In a subway
station that night, August decides to leave Wizard and go to his concert
anyway, with some help from Arthur who also rebels against Wizard.
August flees through the subway tunnel and towards the park where the
concert is underway, following the sounds of Lyla's cello concerto
performance. Wizard is last seen playing his harmonica alone in the
subway.
Louis is heading towards the airport when he notices Lyla's name on a
banner for the concert. He jumps out of the van and heads towards the
park. Meanwhile, Jeffries notices a misplaced flyer for August Rush,
sent to Jeffries' office after August had been removed from Juilliard,
identifies August as Evan, and heads for the concert as well. August
arrives just in time to conduct his
rhapsody,
with Hope on stage singing and Arthur in the crowd watching August's
performance. Lyla, having finished her part of the concert, begins
walking away from the park, but is attracted back towards August's
performance. Louis also arrives at the park and spots Lyla, reuniting
with her at the front of the crowd. Jeffries arrives backstage during
the performance and looks on as well. August finishes his rhapsody and,
turning around, smiles at Lyla and Louis, realizing that they are his
parents. The film concludes with August saying
"The music is all around us, all you have to do is listen." [2007 movie]
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 were played by American guitarist-composer
Kaki King. King's hands are used in close-ups for August Rush.
Composer Mark Mancina spent over 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."
[1]
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."
[2] The score was recorded at the Todd-AO Scoring Stage and the Eastwood Scoring Stage at Warner Brothers.
[3]
Reception
