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
%
Tomatometer
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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
Genre: Dramas
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... [More]
Starring: Ron Livingston, Melissa George, Michael Sheen, Yul Vazquez
Director: Steven Sawalich
Reviews for Music Within
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
...an agreeable though entirely uneven piece of work...
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
I wanted to like this film
10/29/07
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
Leaves no cliche unturned and has no point of view.
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
Latest News for Music Within
November 03, 2007:
Trailer & Poster review 
More...
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