SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Paul J. Nemecek Music of the Heart is pretty predictable. If you've seen Goodbye Mr. Chips, To Sir With Love, Educating Rita, Dead Poet's Society, Dangerous Minds, and/or Mr. Holland's Opus you pretty much know what to expect. What is a little unexpected is that this inspirational and moving film is directed by screammeister Wes Craven (Scream, Nightmare on Elm Street, etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum). Even though the story has been told before this is based on the true story of a woman struggling to teach violin in East Harlem. Meryl Streep plays Roberta, a mother with two children, who has been deserted by her husband. A friend encourages her to apply for this teaching job and the rest of the story is fairly predictable.In spite of its predictability, the film has some very touching moments and is truly inspirational. Meryl Streep at her worst is better than most actors at their best, and Streep is excellent in this role. Add a great supporting cast that includes Angela Bassett, Gloria Estefan, Cloris Leachman and Aidan Quinn, and you have a well-told story with a tried and true theme. Technically, Run, Lola, Run is the more innovative film, but there is a message in Music of the Heart that rings true and inspires. I thought of Bob Briner as I watched this film. Bob's message of roaring lambs is consistent with the theme of Music of the Heart. We should spend less time cursing the darkness, and more time lighting candles. We waste too much time lamenting the emptiness and void of a postmodern world. The message of Music of the Heart is that instead of lamenting the silence, we should burst forth in song.

nhkn05 It truly is inspiring to see such a movie, where the power of music comes to life: not only can you evidently see it in the children and of the character Roberta in the movie, but it touches you as well. A little music goes a long way in life - just ask those students of the past of Roberta!While I love this movie, I just have to laugh a little bit at the user comment of this movie's page on IMDb. Yes, Meryl Streep did well as to learn the violin parts necessary for this movie. But she was not praised by world-class violinists as posted.. Jascha Heifetz died in '87. How on earth would he manage to give her praise like so? Haha.

ianlouisiana What could be worse than Meryl Streep with a cute foreign accent condescending to "Ghetto Kids" and tearing up to Stern and Perlman?No,I can't think of anything either.In a movie to leave the Hollywood Cliché devotees dizzy with delight Miss Streep transcends racial and cultural barriers with one bound and turns Harlem in the happy little Rainbow Nation the movies would love it to be.Sorry guys - it just ain't so. Wes Craven - either enormously naive or enormously cynical - has talked up a small but significant victory into a world - class celebratory blubfest with Jew,European and African American all playing - and by extension living - in harmony.Admirable sentiments,laudable intentions?Or downright deception.You be the judge. If closing down music departments in schools means more movies like "Music from the heart" then for heaven's sake reopen them at once. The really sad thing is that by larding the film down with hyperbole and excessive sentiment,the producers have succeeded in denigrating the brave work of Roberta Guaspari.Assuming this was not their intention,it was at least a bad miscalculation.

LPurch6636 The movie "Music of the Heart" suffers what a lot of similar movies "based on fact" suffer: lack of a smooth flow due to trying to get all the factual information in. It should have remained a book. The boyfriend segment that went nowhere should have been left out altogether, as much as I love looking at Aiden Quinn and watching him act. And the flow was made further awkward because here and there, we are shown the main character as not being sympathetic at all, but having a perfectionistic, difficult personality. So who is the woman who the movie was based on? Certainly not a "warm and fuzzy" type, and yet she does things that help her under-privileged community and students. But it seems like her virtues stem out of a belief-system that "poor public school students should be taught to play the violin" and "anyone can learn the violin"-- not from a fully-formed, sympathetic, "from the heart" woman. ***POSSIBLE SPOILER**... The direction is amateurish with painful cuts from happy face to happy face from an applauding audience at the finale-- including that of the boyfriend that she had left 10 years before applauding wildly like their ending had gone well, and looking like he looked in the last scene we saw him in. Questions beg to be answered. How did all those poor kids get the money to buy the fancy duds for playing at Carnegie Hall? I believe that movies based on modern, real-life people are difficult to make; this one could have stood a LOT more effort in the making.