Music Within

Funny, Gripping, Heart Breaking... This movie has all the elements of Human Nature, both good and bad, and brings them to the Audience in a poignant way. Rich & Art, through their stubbornness and friendship, show that with enough determination 2 people can make a difference. Anyone who has or knows anyone with a disability should appreciate what these 2 men have done for the fellow human being. It also shows what obstacles people with disabilities face and the stigmatizing affects that go with it. It breaks down some barriers of the prejudices that follow the disability community. The Soundtrack is just awesome especially for those of us that remember those times in the 60's & 70's. Top rate acting from some top rate actors.

When you have been watching movies for over 30 years and you come across a gem like Music Within, it keeps you coming back for more. This true story (The subject of the film Richard Pimentel verified the historical accuracy at the Dallas Film Festival screening) is both heartfelt, informative and laced sensitively with humor and insightful one liners. I had the privilege of seeing this at the Dallas Film Festival, though it does not apparently open for general release until September. After the screening, the Director, producer and both Ron Livingstone and Yul Vazquez were accompanied by Richard Pimentel himself for Q and A, which allowed some helpful insights not only into the making of the movie, but also the impact the movie is hopefully going to have on understanding those with disabilities and their assimilation into the workplace. The story itself unfolds chronologically and retells Richard's quest to find the 'music within' through a series of events including his own injury in Vietnam that caused a sever hearing disability and started Richard on the road to his eventual calling to aid others in finding work despite their disabilities. Eventually this even to a significant impact on the enacting of the Americans with Disabilities Act. As for the film itself, the acting of Ron Livingstone and Michael Sheen is particularly notable and I would be surprised if Sheen is not seen as a candidate for best supporting actor at the Academy awards next year. The other notable success is the outstanding screenplay. McKinney,Kennemer and Olsen may not yet be household names, but based on this showing, we will be seeing a lot more of their work in the future. Highly recommended - don't miss it when it comes to a cinema near you!

I went to the LA screening of this movie last night. The director, producer, Ron Livingston, Clint Howard and a few of the crew were there for it. I went in knowing nothing about this movie and must say I loved it! It was a mix of both a great drama and hilarious comedy. It teaches you without being preachy and it seemed to fly by. When it ended I really wanted more, thats something unusual lately. Ron did a great job as well as the rest of the cast, especially Michael Sheen. I think we'll be hearing more about this flick at awards time. If not then thats a real shame. Anyways whenever this film comes out I suggest it for anyone who likes to feel good about life. I know I'll be going to see it again after it opens wide.

THE MUSIC WITHIN (2007) **1/2 Ron Livingston, Melissa George, Michael Sheen, Yul Vazquez, Rebecca De Mornay, Hector Elizondo, Leslie Nielsen. Livingston gives one of his best performances to date in this biography of Richard Pimentel, whose deafness resulted in Vietnam lead him to speak out on behalf of those discriminated for their handicaps and led to the Americans With Disabilities Act. While the film feels like a Hallmark TV Movie the acting is sublimely uniform – Sheen is memorable as Pimentel's cerebral palsy afflicted best friend – and the direction by newcomer Steven Sawalich keeps the story straight forward without being mawkishly maudlin.

Are you familiar with the character "Geordi" on Star Trek the Next Generation? He's a blind character on the Starship Enterprise, Chief Engineer. The problem? He just happens to have a visor that enables him to see perfectly, so he's basically no different from a sighted person. Just a gimmick with a goofy visor.

Similarly, in "Music Within", we get a supposedly deaf man, but after a 12-second montage of him learning to read lips, he is absolutely "normal". He understands people just fine (even when their backs are to him), and when they speak to him he looks them in the eye, not the lips (major oversight by actor Ron Livingston). And just like Geordi's visor, he has a mysterious device strapped to his telephone that makes him able to understand everything perfectly (even though we're repeatedly shown that $1000 hearing aids don't work for him).

Why am I making such a big deal of this seemingly insignificant point? Because it undermines the supposed message of the whole story: that disabled people are exceptional *in their own right*. By making the lead character a deaf person who can hear, by making Geordi a blind man who can see, Hollywood glosses over the reality of having a disability thereby reducing it to trivial.

And that's my gripe with this movie; it's has a very "ABC Afterschool Special" feel to it. The producers tackle a difficult subject but only superficially. Just enough to give us a rousing feeling of warmth.

Is that warmth, or is that just my colostomy bag springing a leak again? Sheesh.

Like several other reviewers, I give this movie a thumbs up for a great subject, but I give it a thumbs down for its clunky, superficial and slightly hypocritical presentation. The whole thing feels somewhat contrived.

The scenes showing discrimination are cartoonishly brutal, and it makes you think everyone in the 70s was a tactless creep. I was alive in the 70s, and while I fully agree that disabled people were overlooked, I never noticed the outright hatred that is portrayed in this film. And we're supposed to believe that the American Disabilities Act suddenly made people tolerant & friendly? That's a little too black&white for me to swallow.

On another note, I agree with what another reviewer said about casting Ron Livingston as Richard Pimmentel. The real Richard Pimmentel is a heavyset man. Why couldn't the producers cast someone who weighed 280 lbs like the real Pimmentel? Or did they themselves discriminate based on looks? Sheesh.

One day Hollywood will make a movie about disabled people and cast REAL disabled people. Until then, I won't be impressed by any lofty message they're trying to impart. We can applaud Michael Sheen all day for his portrayal of a man with Cerebral Palsy, but somewhere out there is an actor with real CP who's out of work because directors figure he's too much trouble to work with.

UPDATE A FEW YEARS LATER...

On that last note I just wrote, I finally saw a great film about a disabled (paraplegic) musician which actually stars a real paraplegic actor. Check out "Sympathy for Delicious" a powerful film about a wheelchair-bound 'rockstar' who possibly has supernatural powers. Starring, written and directed by a man who is paralyzed from the waist down in real life, you can count on a genuine presentation without any fake Geordi visors for the blind or magic bionic telephone ears for the deaf.