Raise Your Voice - Lebe deinen Traum

Hilary Duff stars as Terri Fletcher, a 16-year-old anxious to explore her musical talent at a performing arts academy in L.A. for the summer. After a little persuasion, she makes it there, and the movie is more or less about her exploits therein.

The film starts well; the Three Days Grace concert helps set the musical tone for the movie. That was an unexpected surprise, although I suppose I'm partially biased since I like the band.

A beautiful performance by Hilary Duff. I am more and more impressed with her with every movie I see her in. She brought me to tears twice in the first twenty minutes of the movie. I was impressed by the colorful array of teens at the school, even if they were chosen primarily to make it believable that they're in L.A. I appreciated that none of the teens were written to fulfill any particular stereotype and all seemed like real people, for stereotypes are a sore spot for me, as my teen years were not all that long ago.

I loved the scenes with Denise playing the violin; again, very refreshing and stylistic. John Corbett turns in a innovative performance as a progressive music teacher, breathing a little more life into the film.

The direction really helps to further the movie along, as it is pretty anti-climatic. The 'unwanted kiss' was a bit predictable, however an element of predictability is generally assumed in movies of this persuasion. The make-out scene was completely unnecessary and should've been cut.

And it should be noted that the film is more or less like a Crossroads (2000) for a slightly younger generation, but despite that, it still maintains its own life.

I absolutely love the last song in the film—that was the perfect song for the theme of the movie. And I don't care what anyone says, Hilary Duff is a true performer, even if she isn't that great of a singer. She just always has this glow about her, and no matter how I feel, seeing her perform always makes me smile, and that's something to be commended.

VERDICT: Very enjoyable musical film despite its predictability. Recommended to anyone with kids, who's young at heart, who likes Hilary Duff, or just needs a good smile, but be forewarned—you might get a little teary-eyed before that smile reaches your lips.

6.5 out of 10.0

RAISE YOUR VOICE *** The theme of a young woman singer who travels to Los Angeles to try for a post-secondary music scholarship from a prestigious summer music school gets ho-hum treatment from director Sean McNamara and scripter Sam Schreiber. And it's a shame that the cute, miscast Hilary Duff doesn't have the singing talents to play the young outstanding vocalist in the making, who goes to the school against her over-protective father's wishes. As she is the "star" at the school, she gets the four-minute musical finalé while the other competitors only get 15 seconds of silver screen moments when everyone ultimately competes for the reward, go figure! Plot holes and inconsistencies abound, but its heart is in the right place.

In my review of "Cheaper by the Dozen"(2003), I mentioned the difficulty Hilary Duff is going to have breaking away from typecasting as Lizzie McGuire. The fact that this movie was a Brookwell/McNamara Production, a staple of the cable network that made her famous may be another obstacle from that typecasting. Make no mistake though -- Hilary Duff *IS* a talented actress and singer(in spite of corporate punk pretensions), and even with this formulaic material she proves it. But the way things are looking now, she couldn't break out of the Disney universe if she did hardcore pornography.

Terri Fletcher(Duff) sings in a local church chorus, and for her own personal enjoyment. She also thinks her singing can make her a star, and so does her brother Paul(Jason Ritter) who secretly recommends her for a scholarship to a school for the performing arts in Los Angeles. But her father(David Keith) wants her to stay at home and wait tables at the family diner. After she and her brother sneak out to go to a concert one night, some drunk driver plows into them on the way home. Her brother dies, she survives and is left with crippling flashbacks and survivor's guilt. But just when she thinks she's going to have to spend the rest of her life at the bottom of the barrel, along comes that scholarship to the performing arts school she didn't even know she entered. Of course, the only reason she doesn't want to go is because she's afraid to face the wrath of Dad, so Mom(Rita Wilson) and Aunt Nina(Rebecca De Mornay) tell Daddy she's going to spend time with her aunt, while smuggling her off to that school. And the rest of the movie involves Terri trying to make friends in the big city, cover-up her lie to her father, and deal with her own fear of bright lights, courtesy of that random drunk driver.

Too much about this movie is predictable; The overbearing father, sympathetic avant-garde artistic aunt, the tragic car wreck, the boyfriend with an ex-girlfriend who won't let go(who Terri catches putting the moves on and thinks is unfaithful to her), and yes even the triumphant concert at the end. Having said all that, I must reiterate that I don't want my criticism of this movie to be interpreted as another Duff-bashing tirade. Because regardless of the cookie-cutter plot line, Duff is still outstanding. Yes, she's a better actress than a singer, but both of these aspects of her are far superior to the movie. And if you DON'T believe she can play anyone else but Lizzie McGuire, you should've seen her in a highly publicized episode of Joan of Arcadia from the Spring of 2005. So while it's nowhere near the fluff-piece that her first big series was, it makes you wish there were more parts out there that are better for her.

First of all I have to say that I really love Hillary Duff, I laughed out loud when I watched A Cinderella Story and together with my sister I've seen most of the Lizzie McGuire episodes.

So, I was really curious about this new movie. But if you're making a movie about a girl with an absolutely stunning voice it's really important for the actress that she actually can sing and has an absolutely stunning voice! I've heard some songs from Hillary and they were okay, but this was really horrible that all I could think was: When will she stop? But for the rest? The story is simple and done many times before and even better. At school I learned that it's really important for your characters to change, this change is what makes a simple character a good character (why would the audience want to see a movie about someone who stays the same?) but the only character changing is Hillary and her father...

I can understand why there is no big Studio involved...

Don't get me wrong, I really love Hilary duff's movies, music and everything. But her acting in this movie specifically is really bad. Anyway, is the kind of movie that I would've loved in that moment. I have to admit I'm obsessed with the last song "Someone's watching over me".