Music of the Heart

Let me be the first-and probably only-film critic to bestow an honor on the new Meryl Streep movie, Music of the Heart. It wins, hands down, the award for "sappiest music-related drama," snatching the prize away from the four-year defending champion, Mr. Holland's Opus.

Streep portrays Harlem music school teacher Roberta Guaspari, a woman whose passion to teach the violin was chronicled in the book Small Wonders. Guaspari fought to keep music in the public schools and tried to strengthen her students' values and work ethic. Streep turns a masterful performance as the lead, but is submerged by a painfully schmaltzy collection of supporting actors including Angela Bassett, Aidan Quinn and Gloria Estefan. Gloria Estefan? If you think singing is her only talent... well, actually you'd be right.

At the helm of this film is veteran horror director Wes Craven. He should stick to horror, and never take another stab at a touchy-feely drama. Some of his horror techniques might have altered the film's predictable path-perhaps a giant anthropomorphic violin could embark on a killing spree, or Streep could reveal that she was really Satan. Either change would have been a welcome relief, perhaps even enough to awaken me from my comatose state. Who says non-fiction needs to be accurate?

For all that the plot lacked diverting fantasy, there was plenty of uninteresting inaccuracy. The set director for this movie has clearly never been to Harlem, or for that matter seen photographs of the area: Music of the Heart boasts the prettiest ghetto I ever saw. If Harlem is this nice, I just don't understand why tourism there is so... dead.

The opening sequence alone was enough to have me looking longingly for the exit. Before you can get into this God-awful movie, you have to suffer through a God-awful song by Estefan featuring N'Sync. N'Sync should have spent a little more time on this song. Estefan's singing isn't going to get ya'.

Unless you have time and money to kill this weekend, don't go see this movie. Only a Jell-O wrestling scene by the three female leads could begin to make Music of the Heart a worthwhile film, and sadly, no such scene exists.

-By Martin Barna