- Music of the Heart (1999) movie review summary: As a driven, forceful, and wee bit volatile violin teacher, Meryl Streep singlehandedly rescues Wes Craven’s real-life-inspired and unusually gore-free drama from the sickening pits of Hollywood treacle.
Music of the Heart (1999) movie review: Meryl Streep is a luminous presence in workmanlike real-life-based drama
The director of A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Hills Have Eyes, and the Scream franchise, Wes Craven is hardly the kind of filmmaker from whom one would have expected a syrupy motion picture about a tenacious violin teacher who wins the hearts and minds of her inner-city school students. Yet Craven is the individual largely responsible – along with screenwriter Pamela Gray – for Music of the Heart, a 1999 Miramax release devoid of slashed faces, lethal stabbings, and deadly fingernails.
In place of protracted gore, this distaff version of Mr. Holland’s Opus – with a touch of To Sir with Love[1] – offers loads of sentiment; some classical music (violinists Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, and Mark O’Connor appear as themselves); plenty of lousy pop tunes; and a fantastic, goo-averse central performance.
The star turn in question comes courtesy of two-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep (Kramer vs. Kramer, 1979; Sophie’s Choice, 1982), playing real-life music teacher Roberta Guaspari,[2] doggedly dedicated to keeping the classical arts in New York City’s public school curriculum.
2-time Oscar winner battles Our Gang & pop tunes
There is much to carp about Music of the Heart, from Oscar nominee Angela Bassett (What’s Love Got to Do with It, 1993) being wasted in a non-role to an overabundance of obnoxious pop rhythms in a film that extols the immeasurable worth of classical music. Even so, when Meryl Streep is on screen, nothing else matters.
Not the cornball sequence in which Guaspari must audition for a teaching job at East Harlem’s Central Park East School; not the fact that the youths in her rough neighborhood are as menacing as the Our Gang kids; not even the miscalculation (in terms of dramatic coherence) of having a much too sympathetic actress portray a character who could at best be described as “challenging.”
In fact, Streep’s Guaspari is so eccentrically personable that when her students complain to their parents about her rudeness, they come across as whiny little wimps.
Hackneyed star vehicle
A master at conveying thoughts and emotions by means of a surreptitious look or a slight variation in her tone, Meryl Streep ends up singlehandedly holding together Music of the Heart.
Aidan Quinn provides solid support in his few on-screen moments and so does veteran Oscar winner Cloris Leachman (The Last Picture Show, 1971), but the movie wholly belongs to its star.
Streep, who would receive her twelfth Oscar nod for Music of the Heart, makes every intonation, every action, every reaction seem both effortless and natural, invariably delivering her well-rehearsed lines as if they had just popped in her head. The mechanics of her acting technique are surely there, but they work like invisible strings, each time placing her right on the mark.
Wes Craven clearly realized that Streep – à la Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street – is the very core of his film. Thus, his camera lingers on the actress, allowing her to take charge of nearly every scene.
Very few performers could have managed to carry a hackneyed star vehicle like Music of the Heart for more than two hours. But Meryl Streep can – and does.
Music of the Heart (1999) cast & crew
Director: Wes Craven
Screenplay: Pamela Gray
Cast:
Meryl Streep … Roberta Guaspari
Aidan Quinn … Brian Sinclair
Angela Bassett … Janet Williams
Cloris Leachman … Assunta
Gloria Estefan … Isabel Vasquez
Charlie Hofheimer … Nick at 17
Kieran Culkin … Lexi at 15
Jay O. Sanders … Dan
Jane Leeves … Dorothea von Haeften
Josh Pais … Dennis
Henry Dinhofer … Lexi at 5
Michael Angarano … Nick at 7
Isaac Stern … Isaac Stern
Mark O’Connor … Mark O’Connor
Michael Tree … Michael Tree
Charles Veal Jr. … Charles Veal Jr.
Karen Briggs … Karen Briggs
Itzhak Perlman … Itzhak Perlman
Sandra Park … Sandra Park
Diane Monroe … Diane Monroe
Joshua Bell … Joshua BellCinematography: Peter Deming
Film Editing: Patrick Lussier & Gregg Featherman
Music: Mason Daring
Production Design: Bruce Alan Miller
Producers: Marianne Maddalena, Walter Scheuer, Allan Miller & Susan Kaplan
Running Time: 124 min.
Country: United States
Academy Awards
Music of the Heart received two Academy Award nominations (1999):
- Best Actress (Meryl Streep)
- Best Original Song (“Music of My Heart,” by Diane Warren)
“Music of the Heart (1999) Review” notes/references
Mr. Holland’s Opus & To Sir with Love
[1] Richard Dreyfuss stars as a composer and high-school music teacher in Stephen Herek’s 1995 sleeper hit Mr. Holland’s Opus.
Sidney Poitier stars as a black teacher from British Guyana taming white East End London students in James Clavell’s 1967 hit To Sir with Love.
Unlike its two predecessors, Music of the Heart was a commercial flop, grossing only $14.9 million in the domestic market. Budget: $27 million.
Oscar-nominated Roberta Guaspari documentary
[2] The same year Richard Dreyfuss was shortlisted in the Best Actor Oscar category for Mr. Holland’s Opus, Allan Miller’s Miramax-released documentary feature Small Wonders, centered on Roberta Guaspari’s East Harlem efforts and the climactic Carnegie Hall concert, was also in contention.
Small Wonders lost to Jon Blair’s Anne Frank Remembered.
Music of the Heart (1999) movie credits via the American Film Institute (AFI) Catalog website.
Music of the Heart box office gross and production budget information via boxofficemojo.com.
Meryl Streep Music of the Heart image: Kerry Hayes | Miramax.
“Music of the Heart (1999) Review: Meryl Streep” last modified in March 2025.