| 88 |
Chicago Tribune
Wonderful spirit, humanity and humor.
|
| 77 |
Mr. Showbiz
The year's first sure-fire Oscar nominee has arrived with flying colors.
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
No actress of her generation inhabits characters as thoroughly and convincingly as she (Streep) does, and this performance carries the movie
|
| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times
This one basically just sticks to the real story, which has all the emotional wallop that's needed.
|
| 75 |
Boston Globe
Avoids the potentially suffocating pall of uplift hovering over its quite exhilarating story.
|
| 75 |
USA Today
Yearning for an old-fashioned movie with a well-told, uplifting message? Music of the Heart is playing your song.
|
| 75 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
A teary appreciation of the value of a good teacher, the joy of music and the payoffs of discipline and hard work.
|
| 75 |
Miami Herald
Streep is simply amazing to behold, an actress who invests every fiber of her being -- every gesture, every inflection, every strand of hair -- into her performance.
|
| 70 |
The New York Times
Janet Maslin
An affirmation of the power of music to provide beauty, pleasure and a sense of accomplishment.
|
| 70 |
Variety
David Stratton
A gloriously sentimental true-life drama
|
| 65 |
TNT RoughCut
Sjohnna McCray
Bring two boxes of tissue and a girlfriend to lean on for this blowout tearjerker.
|
| 63 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
The choppy film is like a composition crowded with competing themes.
|
| 63 |
Baltimore Sun
Tear-inducing feel-gooder that only a curmudgeon could find fault with.
|
| 60 |
Los Angeles Times
John Anderson
A lot of heart and a lot of music. It just doesn't sing.
|
| 60 |
Film.com
Streep delivers another of her chameleon-like transformations in appearance, accent, and manner.
|
| 60 |
Rolling Stone
If "Mr. Holland's Opus" made you puke, you'd better bring a bucket to this true-life weepie about the importance of teaching music in schools.
|
| 58 |
Portland Oregonian
So sloppily and unabashedly sentimental that it can make you laugh and cry at the same time -- and often at the same things.
|
| 50 |
Christian Science Monitor
The story's can-do attitude and moments of soaring music make it a must-see for moviegoers seeking positive visions on the screen.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Reader
Self-congratulatory feature, which artificially exalts the character--a classic saint with clay feet--by casting a grande dame and by reducing her motives to facile psychodrama
|
| 50 |
Village Voice
Solid raw material, but the execution is overcooked.
|
| 50 |
Austin Chronicle
Full of nuanced performances (Streep in particular) and wonderfully enveloping music.
|
| 50 |
Time
What saves this movie from hopeless sentimentality is Meryl Streep's subtle performance.
|
| 50 |
TV Guide
It all seems terribly familiar.
|
| 50 |
Salon.com
Falls flat for its skittish reluctance to bear any resemblance to an actual Wes Craven film.
|
| 50 |
Dallas Observer
So uplifting, it's almost...gross.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Feels more like an earnest commercial for music education than successful entertainment.
|
| 50 |
Newsweek
Andrea C. Basora
In the end, it's just another novice-teacher-takes-on-inner-city-kids-and-nobody's-life-will-ever-be-the-same film
|
| 42 |
Entertainment Weekly
A sentimental epic that forgets to include the sentiment
|
| 40 |
Slate
The credits had just started and I was already looking for a barf bag.
|
| 40 |
LA Weekly
Oh, Mr. Craven, give us a "Scream."
|
| 40 |
Washington Post
Another sentimental mushfest disguised as a movie.
|
| 38 |
New York Post
Watching Meryl Streep act can be an exhausting experience - and never more so than during Music of the Heart.
|
| 38 |
Charlotte Observer
Rarely connects with reality.
|
