Music Within (2007)

Touches You

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I cannot express how great of a performance Michael Sheen as art was in this film.I actually thought he was a genuine person with celebral palsy when I watched it and it wasn't until I went to IMDb that I realised that he was not and I uttered 'Holy crap! that's Michael Sheen!' I kid you not, he really was that believable.He is also the very best part about the movie, vulgar and hilarious but still charming.But the lead is of course Ron Livingston and not Michael Sheen, and whenever Art isn't around it simply is not at all as interesting or entertaining.What feels like a terribly forced romance subplot with Melissa George (whom I usually like) taking up too much of the running time with unnecessary conflicts and in the end just feels pointless and other stuff which I can't go into details without spoiling stuff.Yul Vasquez as Mike was also pretty good but a missed opportunity not to develop his character further.In the end it was still watchable but there was potential for so much more.

"Music Within" tells the true story of Richard Pimentel, a Vietnam vet who lost almost all of his hearing on the battlefield and who spent the rest of his life advocating for the rights of the disabled. In fact, Pimentel was instrumental in getting the Americans With Disabilities Act passed into law.Hampered by pedestrian direction by Steven Sawalich and a superficial script, the film, nevertheless, boasts enough humorously sardonic moments to keep it from taking itself too seriously. The relationship between Richard and his longtime girlfriend Christine (played by Melissa George, who's a dead ringer for a young Sandy Dennis) is dealt with in trite and overly familiar terms, and the filmmaking itself never rises much above the level of disease-of-the-week, TV-movie competence.Still, the performances are good - especially by Michael Sheen as Richard's best buddy, Art Honeyman, a genius with Cerebral Palsy - and the material itself so moving and inspiring that one can easily overlook the movie's numerous stylistic weaknesses. And, besides, you get to see the late great Leslie Nielson in one of his last - and briefest - appearances as a forward-thinking doctor who changes Richard's life forever.

A good movie, "Music Within", has some truly touching moments, and a compelling story to go along. Only the overuse of cut-away music became totally gratuitous. Ron Livingston seems like a good fit as the lead in this movie and has the right mix of humor, thoughtfulness, and wit. The scenes with Livingston as Richard and Michael Sheen as Art light up the movie. Together they confront a United States and Northwest of decades ago which hadn't quite figured out acceptance and tolerance. The first several scenes with them both becoming friends are spot-on. I also liked the way Richard confronts his own major problems through helping others. Generally the director and cast really made a good movie here while tackling a difficult subject of people's disabilities and confronting the social contexts they create.

Very interesting biopic about Richard Pimentel, a disabled Vietnam vet who helped bring about the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.The storyline was compelling, and Michael Sheen, as the friend with cerebral palsy, was phenomenal. I wish I could say the same about Ron Livingston, who portrayed the film's main character, but I thought he was terribly miscast. A great deal of the movie centers around a fairly young Richard Pimentel--from late teens to maybe early 30s--and seriously, Livingston always looked like he was fast approaching 40. Plus, I was underwhelmed by his acting, especially after I saw the real Richard Pimentel on the DVD extras--the real Pimentel conveys a wit and intelligence I just didn't get from Ron Livingston.In the DVD extras, I learned that they had to cut out a lot of footage of events in Richard's childhood, because audiences had a hard time believing it could have been so bizarrely bad. I wish they'd left some of that footage in, because I would have liked a better sense of what drove Pimentel, and clearly some of that was due to his childhood. As it was, the childhood portion of the movie seemed rushed, I guess in order to get to the "meat" of the story.I think there were a few other things--such as Richard's relationships--that would have benefited from more screen time, especially given that the movie only clocked in at about an hour and a half. Had it been a two-hour movie, perhaps Richard's character, or some the events that informed it as an adult, could have been fleshed out a little better.That said, it was still a nice little movie that reminds us that those "handicapped" bathroom stalls we take for granted, and the ramps in front of building entrances, weren't always there.