Convinced that his parents will find him, Evan runs away to New York City, "following the music" in the hope it will lead him to his family. Evan is a musical genius and displays savant-like abilities and perfect pitch, which often causes him to be bullied. While Lyla is unconscious, her father secretly puts the baby boy up for adoption, telling Lyla that her son died.Įleven years later, the baby is living in a boys' orphanage under the name Evan Taylor, where he is assigned to a social worker named Richard Jeffries. Following an argument with her overbearing father over her unborn baby, she is struck by a car, forcing her to give birth prematurely. They meet and have a one-night stand, but are unable to maintain contact. Louis Connelly is the lead singer of an Irish rock band.
In 1995, Lyla Novacek is a cellist studying at the Juilliard School and living under the strict rule of her father. So, yes, August is discovered as a child genius, and quickly earns the right to conduct his own symphony at an outdoor concert in Central Park, where he proves himself an expert conductor and (gasp!) his mother is the cellist and his father is nearby, both of them still under the spell of their long-lost love, and.
The Wizard, who dresses like a drugstore cowboy, spots Evan's talent and introduces him to the world as "August Rush." August believes, really believes, that music has the power to bring people together, and finds a sympathizer when he comes upon a church choir where the preacher turns out to have connections at Juilliard.
Only in a movie like "August Rush" could the endless practical and legal problems suggested by this arrangement be considered plausible. He sends his little army out into the streets every day, not as pickpockets but as buskers. Thomas III), who is not called the Artful Dodger but should be, hears Evan and takes him back to an abandoned theater, where he and other young lads live under the management of a character who is called the Wizard ( Robin Williams), but could be called Fagin. The runaway Evan sees some street musicians in Washington Square Park, picks up a guitar and, despite having had no training, turns out to be a naturally gifted musician.
Nothing must interfere with Lyla's career.īack to the present again. Young lovers, learn from the movies and always remember: Exchange cell numbers! Inevitably, she is pregnant (otherwise they wouldn't be Evan's parents, now would they?), but her father tells her the baby died, and ships Evan to an orphanage. They promise to meet again, but Lyla's stage-door father ( William Sadler)forces her to leave town for career reasons, and they have no way to contact each other. Lyla ( Keri Russell) was a cellist and Louis (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) was an Irish rock singer, and in a flashback, we see them meeting in Greenwich Village, falling in love at first sight, and making love so very discreetly that they remain safely within the PG rating. As it happens, his parents were musicians, and they met through their music.