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Music Within
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 18 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 5 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Drama
Written by:
Kelly Kennemer
Mark Andrew Olsen
Bret McKinney
Directed by: Steven Sawalich
Release Date:
Theatrical: October 26, 2007
DVD: April 8, 2008
Running Time: 93 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for language including sexual references, and some drug content
Starring Ron Livingston, Melissa George, Michael Sheen, Yul Vazquez, Rebecca De Mornay, Hector Elizondo, and Leslie Nielsen
Richard Pimentel enlists in the Army for a tour of duty in Vietnam. During combat, the young recruit loses his hearing to a bomb blast, and has to deal with this newfound disability on his return to civilian life in Oregon. Richard discovers that his disability and the struggle to transcend it is a defining moment in his fight for what he believes in. When he tries to help his friends--vets like himself and others with disabilities--to get work in an environment that treats them with pity at best and disdain as a matter of course, he realizes that he can make a difference. Together, the friends experience the currents of those turbulent times, and the wild, joyful energy of winning through confrontation and humor. Without his hearing Richard is all the more prepared to listen to the message deep within himself, and to carry that message to the thousands of people whose lives are improved by the movement he helps organize. (MGM)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
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...
Variety John Anderson
Helmed by Steve Sawalich, this real-life dramedy is anchored by Michael Sheen’s captivating performance as the severely handicapped, profoundly acerbic Art Honeyman.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall
Steven Sawalich directed with invention and heart.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
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.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
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.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
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.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Marta Barber
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.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
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.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Just remember that its hero stands for countless others.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Jessica Reaves
Starts strong but eventually collapses under its weighty sense of responsibility.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Robert Wilonsky
Sheen, like the movie itself, is trying too hard to inspire when the story doesn't need the help.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
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.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
It gives me no pleasure to report that the Pimentel biopic Music Within plays like a well-intentioned TV movie.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust
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.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle G. Allen Johnson
Rarely rises above the level of a TV movie.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White
The combined efforts of three novice screenwriters fail to give shape to a life that was, although devoted to a noble cause, unexceptional.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson
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.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Morten F. gave it a6:
Another movie u see and then say ok, nothing special okies movie.
Chad S. gave it a5:
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.
Jay H. gave it a4:
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.
Laura L. gave it a10:
I love this film!! My friends loved it too! It is a movie with heart and honesty! Thank you!
