Low on drama, but funny, with interesting characters, good performances and is uplifting without being too sweet.
Comment
11/30/07
Music Within (2007)
31 %
Reviews Counted: 39 Fresh: 12 Rotten:27 Average Rating: 5.2/10
Consensus:
Music Within is a well-intentioned but pedestrian production of a story that deserves better treatment.
Runtime: 1 hr 39 mins
Synopsis: Based on a true story, MUSIC WITHIN depicts how one man helped change policies and attitudes toward people with disabilities. Richard Pimentel (Ron Livingston) grew up with an emotionally unstable mother (Rebecca De Mornay) and lost his father in a freak accident, so he turns to public... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Ron Livingston, Melissa George, Michael Sheen, Yul Vazquez, Rebecca De Mornay
Director: Steven Sawalich
Screenwriter: Mark Andrew Olsen, Bret McKinney, Kelly Kennemer
Producer: Brett Donowho, Steven Sawalich
Composer: James T. Sale
Screenwriter: Mark Andrew Olsen, Bret McKinney, Kelly Kennemer
Producer: Brett Donowho, Steven Sawalich
Composer: James T. Sale
Reviews
It's just too bad that the pious treatment given the deserving Pimentel never translated into a more engaging film.
11/29/07
With period songs galore to tell you exactly what's going on inside protagonist Richard Pimentel (Ron Livingston), you hardly need plot or dialogue.
11/14/07
The real world needs more dogged folks willing to tilt at windmills. But movies often don't do their stories justice, and that has happened again here.
11/09/07
Pimentel's persistence and eventual triumph over prejudice and discrimination is a story worth telling, if only on a shoestring.
11/09/07
It gives me no pleasure to report that the [Richard] Pimentel biopic Music Within plays like a well-intentioned TV movie.
11/09/07
Salawich's film is entertaining and leaves you with warm feelings from learning about this man who turned adversity into good for so many others.
11/09/07
If you're looking for one-dimensional, uplifting pap, Music Within fits the bill. It's watchable. Pimentel is obviously a really interesting guy, and it's a shame his tale wasn't told with a bit more flair.
11/09/07
When the subject is not well-known, and the film about his life is unremarkable, the whole thing starts to feel like an exercise in futility.
11/08/07
Both Pimental and the audience would have been better served if his life were told as a PBS documentary.
11/07/07
This offbeat biopic is driven by Ron Livingston's engaging performance as Richard Pimentel, a gifted public speaker who lost his hearing in the Vietnam war and then spearheaded the disability rights movement in the U.S.
11/02/07
The low-budget Music Within may not entirely work on the outside, but at its core beats a very funny, very smart and very moving heart of gold.
11/02/07
This is a nice little well-meaning idea for a movie, but even with three writers on the payroll, it never really catches fire.
10/31/07
This is a heroic tale in many respects, but it's handled here with the heavy hand of television-quality hagiography.
10/27/07
It hits some of the right notes, but at the wrong time and the overall effect is a song out of tune.
10/27/07
Second-time director Steven Sawalich's "music" presumably still resides inside him because it doesn't resound in his Music Within message movie.
10/26/07
All inspiring stuff, but Music Within is strictly by the numbers, even down to the predictable mood-setting period soundtrack numbers
10/26/07
Related Forums
Critic review: "'Music Within' Still Within Fledgling Director Steven Sawalich"
by: filmforlife 10/26/07
by: filmforlife 10/26/07
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