Shine (1996)

I have to admit that I didn't really admire Shine, a nominee for Best Picture of 1996, very much. To me, it was handled more like a disease-of-the-week TV movie than an Oscar-worthy film. I also didn't think Geoffrey Rush was as strong in his performance as all of the awards laden upon him might suggest. He doesn't even give the best performance in this movie. That honor belongs to the talented Noah Taylor, who plays the same character as a teenager and young man. If anyone deserved attention for his acting skill, it's Taylor, not Rush, whose portrayal of a psychologically damaged man is really as tic-laden and phony as the performance given by Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man.

Rush plays the older version of David Helfgott, a brilliant pianist who has suffered a nervous breakdown thanks to the pressure placed upon him by his overbearing father (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and his professors in college. He's been shuttled around from institutions to the homes of well-meaning but quickly overwhelmed friends, and he's finally wound up in a place all his own. He's wandering lost in the rain as the film begins and stops at a restaurant named Moby's. The waiter and waitress find him amusing--he chatters incessantly--and one of them takes him home. He comes back on another night because the restaurant has a piano. He starts to play and becomes a bit of a phenomenon, particularly when people learn that he's the David Helfgott they heard about years earlier.

Ah, yes, years earlier. We actually have three actors playing David Helfgott because much of the film, more than half, is really a flashback to his childhood and young adulthood. The youngest David is played by Alex Rafalowicz, and he's very good at playing a timid boy who's forced to play the piano. He tries to win a talent competition with some Chopin, but the piano keeps moving away from him thanks to his vigorous pounding of the keyboard. One of the judges, Ben Rosen (Nicholas Bell), decides that the boy has talent and wants to teach him. At first, David's father refuses because he doesn't want anyone else teaching David. However, once he relents, David starts to win lots of contests.

The resistance on the part of Pete Helfgott is apparently due to the loss of his family in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. He's fearful that if David is too successful, he'll leave for college or a successful career, and just the thought of his leaving is enough to send Peter into a violent rage. In fact, the older man has a lot of anger management issues, but his wife and children tend to stand by with shameful looks on their faces whenever he has one of his fits. When David is accepted to a college in London and given a scholarship that would pay for his eduction, Peter is at his angriest and, after beating David again, disowns him. Mueller-Stahl, who is always good at playing morally conflicted men, is very strong in a role that requires him to be brutal at times and tender at other times.

Too much of the plot revolves around the Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 3, a notoriously difficult piece of music to perform on the piano. David's father tells him that he has to learn this piece, but his first music teacher, Mr. Rosen, thinks it's far too advanced. When he gets to college, he decides to tackle the piece himself, and one of his professors, John Gielgud's Cecil Parkes, assists him. Although Professor Parkes is often as tough on David as the boy's father was, at least, he's not violent; he's just gruff in barking out orders. It's when he plays the Rachmaninoff piece in concert that David has the breakdown. It's an intense piece of music to be sure, and the sweat drips from the boy as he pounds the keys. It's a remarkable performance at the piano, but it drains him too much.

I suppose I could claim that playing Rachmaninoff apparently drives you mad, but anyone watching the film would know that it's the residual effect of his father's brutality that has caused David's breakdown. He's tried to please his father by playing the one piece of music that was presented as the greatest challenge, and it's overwhelmed him when he accomplishes it. David has just exhausted himself. He winds up having to undergo electroshock therapy and being institutionalized. This portion of the film has Taylor portraying David, and he's quite remarkable. There's an almost feral quality to his performance at times, like an animal that's been wounded too often yet still wants someone to care for him. He also is stunning in the centerpiece of the film, the performance of the Rachmaninoff. You can understand how that piece would drain anyone after watching Taylor at the keys.

The adult David (Rush again) isn't allowed to play music while he's in the hospital. It's through the intervention of one of the volunteers that he leaves the hospital to live with her. He's had older female patrons before, including a novelist who encouraged him to go to London to study and kept in touch with him until her death. Unfortunately, David isn't quite ready for the outside world, particularly given his fondness for pawing at women's breasts at the most inopportune times. He can't even manage to keep his clothes on all of the time. There are few sights as disconcerting as watching a naked Geoffrey Rush jumping on a trampoline, let me tell you. And the overall performance, from my perspective, has little to offer by way of insight into David's life. All Rush has to do is be a bit twittery and talk rapidly and chain smoke and smile and engage in behavior that's inappropriate for public occasions. I just didn't see anything special in it. Almost any actor could have played the part and done just as well.

Shine certainly has its heart in the right place. It's the kind of movie designed to make you feel good when things turn out better for a character who's had a difficult life. I, too, am happy to learn that Helfgott married a wonderful woman, played in the film by the fantastic Lynn Redgrave, and who would begrudge him some of the success he's achieved late in life? Still, this isn't new territory, and it isn't presented in a way that is unique or different. The only thing that makes this story stand out from so many others like it is the fact that the protagonist is Australian. Other than that, we should all be familiar with the story of the tortured artist who has to come back from a tremendous setback. It's that cliched of a movie plotline by now.