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Music Within
Metascore
53 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 18 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 18
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 18
  3. Negative: 0 out of 18
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  1. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Kirk Honeycutt
    70
    Livingston and director Steven Sawalich keep the character in constant motion, his dialogue sprinkled with humor and his energy contagious. The film also is surrounded by a crew of ferociously individualistic characters.
  2. Variety
    Reviewed by: John Anderson
    70
    Helmed by Steve Sawalich, this real-life dramedy is anchored by Michael Sheen's captivating performance as the severely handicapped, profoundly acerbic Art Honeyman.
  3. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Andrea Gronvall
    70
    Steven Sawalich directed with invention and heart.
  4. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    63
    Just remember that its hero stands for countless others.
  5. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Jessica Reaves
    63
    Starts strong but eventually collapses under its weighty sense of responsibility.
  6. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Marta Barber
    63
    As with many biopics, Richard is seen as the perfect hero, a man who singlehandedly changed the way the United States treats its disabled citizens. That's a bit of a stretch.
  7. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    63
    The performances are all solid, but Sheen, last seen as Tony Blair in "The Queen," is so good in his incredibly demanding role that he makes the natural discomfort people feel at seeing someone so debilitated disappear completely.
  8. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    63
    Movies often don't do their stories justice, and that has happened again here. The main problem is a tone that jarringly switches from a kind of Forrest Gump-style narrative to a more generic biopic.
  9. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    63
    It's everything it ought to be: right-minded, well-intentioned, compassionate. But it doesn't rise above made-for-cable public service announcement, either.
  10. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Robert Wilonsky
    60
    Sheen, like the movie itself, is trying too hard to inspire when the story doesn't need the help.
  11. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    50
    It must have sounded great on paper.
  12. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: G. Allen Johnson
    50
    Rarely rises above the level of a TV movie.
  13. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: M. E. Russell
    50
    It gives me no pleasure to report that the Pimentel biopic Music Within plays like a well-intentioned TV movie.
  14. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Crust
    50
    The result is that they never truly find the innate drama in Pimentel's story, instead simply recounting four or five decades' worth of events that shaped the man.
  15. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Matt Zoller Seitz
    50
    A bad movie with a good heart.
  16. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    50
    If it does nothing else, Music Within shows us how deeply Ron Livingston's amiable face can take us into a movie. But even likable mugs like his -- remember him in "Office Space"? -- need help from the movies around them.
  17. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Bill White
    42
    The combined efforts of three novice screenwriters fail to give shape to a life that was, although devoted to a noble cause, unexceptional.
  18. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Tasha Robinson
    42
    Sheen is often the saving grace of Music Within, thanks to an aggressively profane wit that gives an otherwise tapioca-bland story a little edge.
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User Reviews

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User Score
7.0 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 5 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 4
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 4
  3. Negative: 0 out of 4
  1. MortenF.
    6
    Another movie u see and then say ok, nothing special okies movie.
  2. ChadS.
    5
    Next to a guy with cerebral palsy, being deaf looks like a picnic. What if Art(Michael Sheen) met Ron Livingston(Richard Pimentel) instead of the other way around? With Art, front and center, "Music Within" would find something more pressing to dramatize than Richard's problems with women. Richard explains to Christine(Melissa George), in so many words, that his activist work is so much bigger than her protestations of feeling neglected. She's no Betty Shabazz, this one. By showing us how Richard Pimentel's fight for the rights of disabled Americans took a toll on his personal life, the filmmaker makes the same mistake as Christine. A wheelchair ramp, and getting a fair shake for jobs, just might be on the same level as women and blacks having the right to vote, so it just might be a little ungracious of "Music Within" to show how Richard suffered for the "little people"(not dwarfs, but people who have(had) no voice). A deaf person can read lips. You can't hide cerebral palsy. To see the trials and tribulations of a man like Art would really drive home the importance of the American Disabilities Act.… Full Review »
  3. JayH.
    4
    I was not at all convinced by this movie, it all seemed very phony and so trite. The period detail is atrocious. You can't just throw in a 60's and 70's soundtrack. The characters never aged, just their hairstyles changed. The actors try, but it's hopeless with the script. Sloppily made, not enough thought was put into it and it has many loose ends, plot holes and guffaws.… Full Review »
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