Shine
I don't doubt that Shine is based on the true story of David Helfgott, a brilliant piano player from Australia, but I bet that the events depicted didn't happen exactly as they did in the movie. For instance, in one scene, David Helfgott falls down and mentally loses it after playing Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #3. I'm sure that it was director Scott Hicks intention to show his mental degradation in a matter of seconds. Who knows? Maybe it did happen that way.
But it really doesn't matter, because the scene is so powerful and probably my favorite out of the whole movie. The "Rach 3" supposedly needs a lot of emotion put into it and only the expert pianists can do that. While playing the Rach, David's feelings towards the music and towards his father collide and it results in his mental incompacity later on. His father's abuse, when David was a child, was too much for him to handle.
His father, Peter (Armin Mueller-Stahl), wanted his son to succeed at playing the piano and chess. When David (as a boy, played by Alex Rafalowicz) lost a chess match, or a music competition, he would get angry and tell his son that only winning matters. After losing one particular musical competition, one of the judges (Nicholas Bell) offers to teach David for free. When he becomes an adolescent (Noah Taylor), he becomes a very popular pianist and gets offers for scholarships at various music colleges, even one in America. However, Peter is very strict and won't let David "ruin their family" by leaving.
He is helped by an old woman (Googie Withers) to decide to take one of the offers to go to London to study music. He leaves his family, and his father disowns him, but he is too committed to his music to care. At the music college, he is tutored by a professor (played wonderfully by John Gielgud) and he teaches him how to play Rachmaninoff #3 with the right emotion. However, the piece is such a hard and powerful piece to play, David breaks down after playing it at a concert.
The film jumps forward to David as an adult (played with perfection by Geoffrey Rush) as he tries to gather his mind together. He walks around aimlessly mumbling to himself. He gets most of his help from an astronomer (Lynn Redgrave), who first meets him through a friend, then as he performs in a restaurant, David and Gillian, the astronomer, fall in love. He proposes to her, but she leaves. And then after a while of thinking about it, she goes back and marries him. This love between the two helps David put his mind back together.
The real star of the movie is Geoffrey Rush, and he pretty much makes the movie what it is. It does have a very good story, but Rush was terrific and I'm sure he'll get the Best Actor Oscar. Whenever it showed him playing, I wondered if it was him really playing, or if he just keyed the notes and someone else played it. It was good enough to fool me though; if he did play it, he is very good; if he didn't, then he is a very good faker. Armin Mueller-Stahl is very good as the father of David. He shows one side as a loving father, and the other side as a strict and sometimes ruthless man. Lynn Redgrave is terrific as well as David's wife. John Gielgud is wonderful, and so is the rest of the cast.
Shine is rated PG-13 for nudity and sexuality, and some intense thematic elements. There are moments when David is running around nude or without his pants on, but that is the result of his mentality. I heard kids laughing and whining in the back of the theater and I wondered who would have brought their kids to this kind of a movie. In actuality, it really isn't that bad for kids, because it teaches some good morals, although I think fathers should watch this movie. It might teach them a few things too. If this movie only gets one Oscar, it will be Best Actor.