Music of the Heart

TIFF [1999]

Meryl Streep

Directed by Wes Craven. Written by Pamela Gray, based on the documentary "Small Wonders" by Allen & Lana Miller.

Starring: Meryl Streep, Aidan Quinn, Angela Bassett, Gloria Estefan, Jay O. Saunders, Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman

(Gala Presentation)

Horrormeister Craven finally gets to stop complaining and unveils his first "mainstream" movie, and the results are less horrifying than one might think

THE STORY:

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1988: Recently separated army-wife and private music tutor Roberta Guaspari (Meryl Streep) moves back home with her two sons, aged 7 & 5, and finds herself being driven slowly mad by her doting mother (Cloris Leachman). Finding a job as a gift wrapper in a department store, Roberta meets an old high school friend, writer Brian Sinclair (Aidan Quinn), who's shocked to find her stuck behind a counter when she should be playing violin on stage at Carnegie Hall. Over coffee, Brian tells Roberta of a possible job offer teaching the violin, and sets her up for an interview. "But you'll have to be willing to relocate", he warns.

Visibly mortified to be in East Harlem, Roberta is queried by Principal Janet Williams (Angela Bassett) on her teaching experience. While Roberta has no degree or public-school-level experience per se, she has tutored her own two children to near-virtuoso level. Janet is sympathetic and intrigued by the idea, but laments the lack of funding and predicts lacklustre response from the faculty and the parents. Music teacher Dennis (Josh Pais) tells Roberta that the children are hopeless, with short attention spans and a total waste of energy. Janet takes a gamble, and hires Roberta as a substitute.

Moving the children into Brian's apartment in New York, Roberta and her saviour engage in a brief romance, before Roberta grows tired of Brian's roving lifestyle and inability to commit and leaves him. At school, the children are at first predictably uncooperative and skeptical of their strict teacher's enthusiasm for the instrument, but soon, she starts to warm up and the small class becomes empowered through their creation of music. Teachers scoff, children get pulled out of the program, but Roberta succeeds into convincing everyone with a rousing spring recital that inspires all, including the skeptical music teacher and assorted parents. 10 years later...

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