Music of the Heart Review
by James Sanford (jamessanford AT earthlink DOT net)November 17th, 1999
Music of the Heart
Directed by Wes Craven
(Miramax)
If you didn't know going in that "Music of the Heart" is based on a true story, you might easily mistake it for Hollywood hokum. Simply put, many of the events in the life of violinist/educator Roberta Guaspari seem too good to be true.
After being left high and dry with two young sons by her naval officer husband, Guaspari took a friend's advice and seized the opportunity to work as a substitute music teacher at an alternative elementary school in East Harlem. Despite skepticism from her fellow faculty members -- "their attention span doesn't go beyond 'do re mi'," cracks one veteran of the students -- Guaspari went forward with her plans to use the 50 violins she'd purchased during a stay in Greece as tools to start a violin class. Soon, she had to hold a lottery to limit her class sizes.
Acclaim and support also poured in from the brightest lights in the classical music world, and when Guaspari's program was threatened because of budget cuts, such stars as Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell and Isaac Stern offered their support to save it.
It all sounds enormously uplifting and hugely contrived. Sometimes "Music" plays that way, too, especially in the early stretches, which include a fairly tepid romance between Guaspari and a crusading journalist (Adian Quinn) and some early brushes with a no-nonsense principal (Angela Bassett) that seem a bit too calculated. Director Wes Craven, taking a break from the horror films he's best known for (the original "Nightmare on Elm Street" and the first "Scream" are two of his crowning achievements), initially has a tough time getting the rhythms of his scenes down and several of them run on too long or end abruptly.
But "Music" does finally overcome its haphazard first reels, due in large part to a typically vibrant performance by Meryl Streep as Guaspari. It's no secret the movie was originally intended as a vehicle for Madonna -- in fact, the real-life Guaspari looks more like Madonna than Streep.
Without denigrating Madonna's abilities, it's difficult to believe she would have improved on Streep's work here. Streep makes Guaspari's metamorphosis from self-pitying victim to impassioned activist seem effortless and, while a pro might spot flaws in her musicianship, her playing certainly looks and sounds genuine.
On top of that, most of Streep's scenes are played opposite children, something any actor will tell you is a challenge at the best of times. Not only does she refuse to condescend to these little co-stars, she dares them to rise to her level, and many of them do just that. This is not a movie that pauses to dwell on the dimpled cheeks of a little cutie; the kids in this cast actually have to work, probably in much the same way Guaspari's students did.
Though it doesn't always manage to make Guaspari's trials credible, the script does make some valid points about how people can impose limitations on themselves and their children. Confronting a self-righteous African-American mom who wants to pull her son out of the violin class because she can't see any point in him learning "dead white men's music," Roberta asks pointedly, "What if Arthur Ashe's mother had told him he couldn't play tennis because it was a white man's game?". The film actually improves on Guaspari's autobiography of the same title by making at least some effort to individualize some of her pupils; the book tends to address them as statistics. But ultimately both the book and the movie have the same message, that sometimes what we think is our biggest disaster can actually be the springboard for our greatest triumph. It's an age-old sentiment, but Guaspari and Streep sell it with plenty of conviction. James Sanford
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