MUSIC OF THE HEART (1999) *** It's one of those true life liberal fairy tales, where a single colorblind, good-hearted individual overcomes mindless bureaucracy and changes the world for the best. Skeptics and Marxists can be forgiven for noting that, here at least, it helps to know some rich people to grease the wheels. Fair enough, but worthy of only passing consideration. It was unquestionably a glorious event, but one that doesn't necessarily lend itself to being much of a film. So many dilemmas (divorce, single mother syndrome, hostile working environment, teenagers), such a presumptively short attention span on the part of the audience. That's why you cast Meryl Streep when Madonna bails (that would have been interesting, and I don't think necessarily a disaster). The lead's a character who probably couldn't entirely make sense to anyone, including herself, and Meryl projects that in multitudinous directions that would only appear to include the audience through some random accident. Part of it has something to do with violins, and fans of the fiddle will glean the price of admission many times over when Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman and Arnold Steinhardt make their appearances. They're all, in addition to being violinists of historic proportion, spirited actors, which will either make you rejoice or remind you that there's no justice in the distribution of raw materials, depending on your polarity calibrations. Meryl is so on character that she could have carried it all by herself, but it's nice that she's sustained and accentuated by outstanding performances pretty much all around, most notably Gloria Estefan, Aidan Quinn, and Adam LeFevre. LeFevre is absolutely spectacular-if you're casting a self-absorbed, soulless, big-eared, congenitally petty representation of mediocrity at its worst, look no further! The miracle is that he ever made it this far--how could some aspiring young ad exec not have picked him off to star in the "before" stills of laxative commercials? He's an authentic monster, and Wes Craven works him far more effectively than his previous models. Hooray(!), incidentally, for the music of dead white guys.
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