Shine 1996
I remember Geoffrey Rush winning Best Actor for this movie (the only one of 7 nominations it won, including Best Picture and Screenplay) so I decided to borrow it with a Screen Pass. It is based on a true story of a talented young pianist in Australia who eventually succumbs to mental problems. Because it covers his life as a teen, the teenage version actually seems to have more screen time than Rush. I wasn’t that crazy about Rush’s performance. Ultimately the story turns out okay and in a nice way that most true stories of mental illness do not get. But the movie is also a little underwhelming. The pianist has a very overbearing and spiteful father and that is the focus of at least half of the movie as the kid shows talent, but the father messes things up. Even as a kid there seem to be some mental issues at work, but other than showing the results, I don’t think the movie ever brings out what those specifically are or what is causing them (a little too simple to say it is the father’s mistreatment), kind of similar to how we don’t know why he is so good at piano. And otherwise there isn’t much to the story. I don’t feel like we ever get to know this character and he is basically the entire movie. So it felt a little empty and too straightforward for me. The central challenge in the movie is the “Rach 3,” Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, which is presented as the Mount Everest of piano, breaking people who attempt it before they are ready to take on such a challenge, a reverie that is almost silly here. So this is kind of a lightweight movie with a very caricatured performance by Rush in the last third of the movie and a more distant performance by Noah Taylor portraying the teenager. Shine may have had a windfall in awards in a weak year, but ultimately was overshadowed by Fargo and The English Patient.
Written: 09 Mar 2022