April 2008

Not many people got a chance to see Music Within on the big screen.  Released in less than two dozen theaters the film, based on the life of Richard Pimentel and his lifelong struggle to change the perceptions, attitudes, and prejudices of the populace to the disabled, is filled with heart and includes one of the finest supporting performances I have ever seen.  It’s not a great film, but there’s plenty here to enjoy.  Out today on DVD, here’s our review.

Music Within
Custom Rating

“The only person on the planet I could hear was a wickedly obscene genius with Cerebral Palsy.  And the only person who could understand him was a deaf vet.  We were like a traveling freak show.”

“Most people go to their graves with their music inside them.”

The film is based on the real life of Richard Pimentel (played here by Ron Livingston), a talented public speaker whose hearing was severally damaged during his service in Vietnam.  On returning home, Pimentel struggled with adapting to the world, faced prejudice and discrimination, and was driven to change the way the world viewed and acted towards people with disabilities.

The film follows the life of Pimentel from birth through his crowning achievement and the passing of the American With Disabilities Act.  Filled with both humor and tragedy, it’s an uplifting and hopeful film, even if it bites off a little more than it can chew.

Livingston is quite good here in the dramatic lead, so good that he may just stop being referred to as that guy from Office Space.  The real breakthrough performance comes from Michael Sheen as a wheelchair bound friend with Cerebral Palsy.  It’s as an amazing piece of acting as any I’ve seen.

Also included are some nice supporting performances by Melissa George as Pimentel’s lady love and Hector Elizondo as a professor who, for both better and worse, changes Richard’s life.  Rebecca De Mornay also has a small role as Richard’s mentally deranged mother, a sub-plot that gives you more insight in the character but is never fully incorporated into the film.

The film tries condense Pimentel’s entire life into 93 minutes.  That’s a noble attempt, but it’s not entirely successful.  Problems occur when storylines have to be simplified into a series specific events.  Although most of these are handled well-enough, there are moments throughout the film where we are expecting scenes and plotlines which are never delivered.  The film’s subject matter has a weight and a purpose which easily could have been more deeply explored in two-plus hour film.  I would have liked more on Pimentel’s work and the process from his original Windmills proposal, to its inception, to its effects, and put them all into an overall historical perspective.

Music Within is worth checking out for the performances, and for those interested in one man’s efforts to change the world.  It’s not a great film, and I would have liked to know a little more about what was in Pimentel’s revolutionary Windmills project (why was it revoluntionary?  what did it say?  how was it implemented?) and the process of getting the American Disabilities Act through Congress.  The character study it does give us however is well-made, although it’s wrapped up a bit too neatly for my tastes.  Not many people saw the film when it was released; hopefully more will find it now on DVD.

One final note.  The MPAA, in their infinite wisdom, branded this feel-good story with an R-rating for “sexual references, and some drug content.”  First, the average teen flick has more sexual references, much more explicit and vulgar, than can be found in this film.  Yes, it does point out the some people practiced open relationships in the 1960’s (shocker!), but in no way does it celebrate or exploit this subject in any way.  Second, the drug content which it refers deals to with the repeated suicide attempts of Pimentel’s mother with sleeping pills (all which take place in the film’s first ten minutes).  Although these are things which would need to be discussed with younger viewers, there is nothing here which would merit such a harsh rating (other than the fact that the film deals responsibly with the subject and doesn’t have a name star attached to the project).  While the film might not be for younger kids, there’s nothing here to shock anyone, and it’s a shame a tale such as this will be forced out of the hands of those who would benefit the most from it’s message of perseverance and triumph over prejudice – adolescents.