August Rush is dripping with sentimentality. It is so thick with sentiment that it will likely make some in the audience sick from the heavy sweetness. Generally, sentiment that is layered this high will turn me off to a film, as there is just something about it that feels manipulative and robs a film of any real emotion as the reality is smothered by the deep blanket of sentiment.

I suspected that high sentiment would be the case here, but the trailer won me over by the strength of the cast and the use of music. I sat in the theater hoping for the best and expecting the worst. However, the further in that we got, the more involved I became. I was won over by the story and how it seemed to be operating on a whole other level, a level where sentiment is not a curse but a blessing. August Rush is a special film; it dug itself into my mind and my heart and I became completely invested in the lives of the characters. It is not perfect, but there is definitely something about this film that makes the entirety of its experience a journey well worth taking.

The film opens with tragedy, a sorrow so deep that there is no place to go but up. Despite the sadness that fills the opening, we know where this is going to go. This type of story is not so much about the destination as it is about the journey. We know that everyone is going to come together in the end. It is the individual journeys and experiences that matter most, and August Rush delivers.

Let's give a rough outline of the story. It is 2007; Evan Taylor (Freddie Highmore) is a young boy living in an orphanage in upstate New York. He is a special child; he hears all the sound around him and can hear the music in nature. Everything around him adds to the cacophony of sound, a natural orchestra. All he knows of his parents is that they are musicians; this fact convinces him that he can hear his parents in the sound around him and if he can learn to play the notes they will hear him too and come for him. This firmly held belief keeps him at the orphanage, for fear that if he is adopted his real family will not be able to find him. Evan's story is one of sadness with an underpinning of hope.