Music of the Heart

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Wonderful spirit, humanity and humor.

Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard

The year's first sure-fire Oscar nominee has arrived with flying colors.

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

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

This one basically just sticks to the real story, which has all the emotional wallop that's needed.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Avoids the potentially suffocating pall of uplift hovering over its quite exhilarating story.

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

Yearning for an old-fashioned movie with a well-told, uplifting message? Music of the Heart is playing your song.

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.

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.

The New York Times Janet Maslin

An affirmation of the power of music to provide beauty, pleasure and a sense of accomplishment.

Variety David Stratton

A gloriously sentimental true-life drama

TNT RoughCut Sjohnna McCray

Bring two boxes of tissue and a girlfriend to lean on for this blowout tearjerker.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

The choppy film is like a composition crowded with competing themes.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Tear-inducing feel-gooder that only a curmudgeon could find fault with.

Los Angeles Times John Anderson

A lot of heart and a lot of music. It just doesn't sing.

Film.com Tom Keogh

Streep delivers another of her chameleon-like transformations in appearance, accent, and manner.

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.

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.

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.

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

Village Voice Jessica Winter

Solid raw material, but the execution is overcooked.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Full of nuanced performances (Streep in particular) and wonderfully enveloping music.

Time Richard Schickel

What saves this movie from hopeless sentimentality is Meryl Streep's subtle performance.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

It all seems terribly familiar.

Salon.com Mary Elizabeth Williams

Falls flat for its skittish reluctance to bear any resemblance to an actual Wes Craven film.

Dallas Observer Andy Klein

So uplifting, it's almost...gross.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Feels more like an earnest commercial for music education than successful entertainment.

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

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

A sentimental epic that forgets to include the sentiment

Slate David Edelstein

The credits had just started and I was already looking for a barf bag.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Oh, Mr. Craven, give us a "Scream."

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Another sentimental mushfest disguised as a movie.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Watching Meryl Streep act can be an exhausting experience - and never more so than during Music of the Heart.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Rarely connects with reality.