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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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Music of the Heart
Miramax Films
FILM:
MPAA RATING: PG for brief mild language and sensuality
Starring
Meryl Streep,
Aidan Quinn,
Angela Bassett,
and
Cloris Leachman
Story of a Harlem schoolteacher's (Streep) struggle to teach violin to inner-city kids. They eventually perform at Carnegie Hall.
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Pamela Gray
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Wes Craven
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: April 25, 2000
Video: April 25, 2000
Theatrical: October 29, 1999
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
124 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
88
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
Wonderful spirit, humanity and humor.
77
Mr. Showbiz
Kevin Maynard
The year's first sure-fire Oscar nominee has arrived with flying colors.
75
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
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
Roger Ebert
This one basically just sticks to the real story, which has all the emotional wallop that's needed.
75
Boston Globe
Jay Carr
Avoids the potentially suffocating pall of uplift hovering over its quite exhilarating story.
75
USA Today
Susan Wloszczyna
Yearning for an old-fashioned movie with a well-told, uplifting message? Music of the Heart is playing your song.
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
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
Rene Rodriguez
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
Carrie Rickey
The choppy film is like a composition crowded with competing themes.
63
Baltimore Sun
Chris Kaltenbach
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
Tom Keogh
Streep delivers another of her chameleon-like transformations in appearance, accent, and manner.
60
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
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
Shawn Levy
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
David Sterritt
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
Lisa Alspector
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
Jessica Winter
Solid raw material, but the execution is overcooked.
50
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Full of nuanced performances (Streep in particular) and wonderfully enveloping music.
50
Time
Richard Schickel
What saves this movie from hopeless sentimentality is Meryl Streep's subtle performance.
50
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
It all seems terribly familiar.
50
Salon.com
Mary Elizabeth Williams
Falls flat for its skittish reluctance to bear any resemblance to an actual Wes Craven film.
50
Dallas Observer
Andy Klein
So uplifting, it's almost...gross.
50
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
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
Owen Gleiberman
A sentimental epic that forgets to include the sentiment
40
Slate
David Edelstein
The credits had just started and I was already looking for a barf bag.
40
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor
Oh, Mr. Craven, give us a "Scream."
40
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Another sentimental mushfest disguised as a movie.
38
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
Watching Meryl Streep act can be an exhausting experience - and never more so than during Music of the Heart.
38
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
Rarely connects with reality.
 The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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