THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 1, 1997 TAG: 9701310047
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: 89 lines
SELDOM HAS any motion picture arrived with as much advance critical hoopla as ``Shine.'' Does it really shine that much? Can any film come up to these expectations?
The questions finally can be answered after the long-delayed local opening - and most of them, delightfully, can be answered in the affirmative.
``Shine'' is a story of overcoming. ``Shine'' is a story of hope. Most of all, the almost miraculous success of this low-budget, independent little movie from Australia is due not as much to the film itself as it is to the fact that moviegoers are being starved elsewhere. This film is a throwback to the era when movies regularly stirred the emotions, a throwback to a less cynical age when movies regularly were sentimental without insulting the audience.
If nothing else, the film has put Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto on the pop charts. (In Australia, sales have topped a million since the film's release.)
Based on the true-life traumas and triumphs of Australian pianist David Helfgott, it is a story of survival. Helfgott was a child prodigy, driven by a domineering father. In an early scene, we see young David skipping down the sidewalk as a child might want to do - a poignant suggestion that real childhood was not to be for him. His father was a Polish immigrant, a man made bitter by the Holocaust whose own early musical aspirations were crushed. He is jealous of his young son's achievements and blocks opportunities for him to study in America. When David is accepted at London's Royal College of Music, he defies his father to take the chance. Consequently, he is shut off completely from the family.
After winning a medal by playing the Rachmaninoff concerto, he collapses on stage, the victim of a complete mental breakdown.
Only years later, and only as a result of loving care, does Helfgott return to the real world. Now, at age 49, Helfgott performs in public. It is his playing you often hear on the soundtrack.
The film is impeccably acted. Helfgott is played by three actors, all of whom look enough alike and act enough alike to merge into a single interpretation. Alex Rafalowicz is the child David, full of wonder and easily controlled. Best of all is Noah Taylor as David, the young man. Taylor's nerdish look fully suggests that music, and an insular life, is his only hope.
It is a perfect set up for Geoffrey Rush to take over as David, the adult. Rush is getting all the honors and is a front-runner for this year's Academy Award. He masters the twitches and gibberish dialogue of this troubled 40-something man.
Armin Mueller-Stahl is formidable as the frightening father; it's the one role that teeters perilously close to melodrama. To the film's credit, the father never quite becomes a real villain. His faults, as heinous as they are, are thoroughly understandable.
John Gielgud is the demanding music teacher who encourages the young David to ``attack'' the piano keyboard. Lynn Redgrave has a less demanding, but well-balanced, role as the woman who shows that even a flawed character such as David deserves, and needs, love.
Detractors, of which there are few, have claimed that Rush's performance is a repeat of Dustin Hoffman's in ``Rain Man'' but the balance and sensitivity of ``Shine'' cannot be denied. Music lovers, too, can spot Chopin's Prelude No. 15, Liszt's ``Hungarian Rhapsody'' and Rimsky-Korsakov's ``Flight of the Bumble Bee.''
The film's grandiose reputation may, at this stage, work against it with some ``show me'' viewers. Personally, I've been through half a year of hearing about how great it is. It was a triumph at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival. It has won critics' awards everywhere, including a Golden Globe for Rush. It now shapes up as the major competition for ``The English Patient'' in this year's ``best picture'' Oscar race - proof, if nothing else, that the big Hollywood studios are letting us down and we are right to seek good films elsewhere.
Most of all, ``Shine'' is not one of those films that asks us to believe overnight triumph. It is a film about hope, not salvation. It persuades us that each one of us needs to keep going, and to survive is to ``shine.'' ILLUSTRATION: FINE LINE FEATURES photo
Geoffrey Rush is a front-runner for this year's Academy Award for
his performance as the adult David Helfgott in ``Shine.''
Graphic
MOVIE REVIEW
``Shine''
Cast: Geoffrey Rush, Noah Taylor, Alex Rafalowicz, Armin
Mueller-Stahl, Lynn Redgrave, John Gielgud
Director: Scott Hicks
Screenplay: Jan Sardi
MPAA rating: PG-13 (emotional intensity, some language,
off-camera flashing)
Mal's rating: four stars
Location: Naro in Norfolk