In terms of acting, Taylor - as the youthful Helfgott - builds on the powerful work that he has done in such films as “The Year My Voice Broke” and “Flirting.” If anything, he outshines (pardon the pun) the performances put in by Oscar nominees Rush and Mueller-Stahl, both of whom are actors you can’t help but watch. Director Hicks has a good sense of the visual, which allows him to capture the claustrophobic feel of the Helfgott home, the desperate stress caused by musical competitions and the child-like release of a mind that bends but refuses to break. One of his fans introduces Helfgott to the woman (played by Lynn Redgrave) who will become his wife and, ultimately, who will lead him back into the spotlight.Īll of this is portrayed respectfully and, for the most part, artistically. At this point Rush’s Helfgott becomes more of a good-natured symbol of emotional fragility than a living, breathing human being. For the next thing we know, Helfgott is back in Australia, living in a managed-care facility, alienated from his family and dependent on friends and fans. A crisis is inevitable.Īnd this is where the film is weakest. And yet the elder Helfgott’s curse manages to mark the boy forever: “No one will ever love you like I do,” he says.ĭriven to prove himself by father substitutes (John Gielgud is one), Helfgott finally is confronted by a demon that his fragile ego can’t overcome: Rachmaninoff’s formidable Piano Concerto No. It’s no wonder that when the boy does manage to leave, to accept a scholarship to study in London, his father disowns him. Any attempt by the boy to assert his independence brings swift and harsh retribution. The epitome of a man living through his son, Helfgott’s father alternately loves and abuses the boy, guiding him to superb musicianship but always on his own strict terms. And we see why, despite his vulnerability, this prodigy can make the piano come alive. Then Hicks and Sardi take us back to the beginning, when the youthful Helfgott is the eldest and most promising child living in a house ruled by a dominating Polish-emigre patriarch (Armin Mueller-Stahl). He initially annoys, then delights, the staff and patrons of a restaurant with his penchant for playing difficult classical pieces.
We first see him as a grown-up mass of neuroses, a stuttering variation on Dustin Hoffman’s autistic “Rain Man” character (though Helfgott is more connected to the world around him). What gets lost in the mix, unfortunately, is the man himself.
#Movie music prodigy boy movie
Played by three actors - Alex Rafalowicz as a boy, Noah Taylor as a young man, Geoffrey Rush as an adult - Helfgott is the focus of a movie that is both a family drama and a personal tragedy. Hicks, pursuing the script that he co-wrote with Jan Sardi, follows Helfgott’s initial rise to glory, his subsequent fall and his ultimate recovery. Scott Hicks’ film “Shine” tells the true-life story of Helfgott, an Australian musician whose early promise as a pianist once warranted headlines. The same blend of brain chemistry that results in genius all too often forces the very-talented into debilitating dementia. The idea of artist-as-madman is no mere plot device for a grade-B movie.
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