SHINE (62)

Directed by: Scott Hicks

Starring: Geoffrey Rush, Noah Taylor, Armin Mueller-Stahl, John Gielgud

The Pitch: The true story of pianist David Helfgott, driven to near-insanity by the pressure to succeed but eventually finding his own happy ending.

Theo Sez: Skilfully done, though it often reminded me of that famous cartoon (I think from "The New Yorker" in the 30s, though I wouldn't swear to it) of a little boy at the dinner table, glaring at a fancily-garnished, beautifully-prepared dish in front of him and declaring, "I still say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it!". Hicks has a sense of pace and an eye for the striking detail (a dripping tap, sparks in a crackling fire), but is unable to shake the banality cobwebs out of this simplistic triumph-of-the-spirit tale - though, equally, can't diminish the poignant power of the film's central figure, the Artist as a lost soul with only his Art to sustain him (and keep him halfway-sane). In that sense the film is a continuation of a recent trend - hitherto mostly in acclaimed documentaries like CRUMB and I JUST WASN'T MADE FOR THESE TIMES - that suggests a return to the Romantic (and basically fraudulent) view of creativity as a flamboyant, self-destructive process, the artists behind it tortured and Byronic: a reaction perhaps to the fact that most of today's so-called creative people behave in a highly sensible fashion, fully endorsable by corporate sponsors. Having said that, the film is rather unsure of itself on this ground, shying away from the conclusion that creative passion can be self-destructive and preferring the safer route of painting its hero as a victim, through the ill-defined (and finally peripheral) figure of the domineering father, a barely-updated variation on James Mason in THE SEVENTH VEIL fifty years ago. Perhaps it was felt that a mass audience wouldn't understand the notion of literally losing oneself in music, and indeed this is a mass-audience kind of movie, feelgood and rather plastic, at its most foolish when it has Gielgud wrap his honeyed voice round some hilariously corny dialogue. But it's also a fluid, well-acted movie (Taylor, the star of John Duigan's marvellous Danny Embling films, taking top honours), and it never quite loses sight of the fascinating kernel of truth at its centre. It's meretricious, but far from offensive.