The Music Never Stopped
It is difficult for films to really capture the emotional connection people have with music. It can visualize people really getting into a song or the performance of music, but how does one express that in words? Even I have difficulty doing that in writing; it’s easy to describe the basic feelings one gets from the music, but to express how a piece of music digs deep into our souls and inspires? Most people get tripped up.
“The Music Never Stopped,” with a career performance by J.K. Simmons that deserves Oscar’s attention, nails that expression of musical love beautifully. Where most films would trade on rank sentiment, this movie handles its story (based on an essay written by Oliver Sacks, whose book, Musicophilia, I bought– and started reading –a few years ago) with delicacy and genuine warmth and heart. The pain of its characters is real; the humor of their interactions comes through naturally; the tears it brought to my eyes were earned. I truly wish this film would have the chance to find the audience it deserves.
But this movie is much more than just the power of music. It’s about one family’s struggle to reconnect after years apart. The year is 1986, and Henry and Helen Sawyer (Simmons and Cara Seymour) have settled into old age. They get a phone call from the hospital about their estranged son, Gabriel (Lou Taylor Pucci), who left home in the late ’60s after a heated argument. Gabriel has been brought in off the streets and was diagnosed with a brain tumor, which has been with him for many years. After surgery, Gabriel’s tumor was gone, but he ended up with tremendous brain damage where much of his memory was lost. The Sawyers are devastated, and getting used to this new Gabriel is too much for them to handle. One day, Henry reads an article about a woman who has found success using music to reach people with brain damage. But can Dianne Daley (Julia Ormond) reach Gabriel through such methods? Henry is hopeful, but even he isn’t sure he can put too much hope into it.
Think about any movie that gets to the heart of what music means to you. As difficult, as I said earlier, that it is for cinema to do so, a few come to mind for myself: Start with “Almost Famous,” Cameron Crowe’s wonderfully nostalgic look at his years writing for Rolling Stone; then I might say “Amadeus,” which highlights the jealousy of Saliari but emphasizes the genius of Mozart through his rival’s eyes; and then possibly “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” which ramps up the sentiment but also reflects the experience I had in high school studying music (Richard Linklater’s “School of Rock,” which takes a more rebellious look at music education, is also a shining example if you don’t want that much sap); Hell, even “This is Spinal Tap” resonates with an unabashed love of music. But even these films, except for perhaps “Almost Famous”– and possibly “High Fidelity,” which I failed to mention above –seem to fall short in the end. What “The Music Never Stopped” does above all else is explore music’s capability to trigger our memories and bring us back to moments and periods of our lives that have long passed. This is how the Sawyers, especially Henry (who passed his own love of music onto his son), are able to interact again with Gabriel and maybe even teach Gabriel to form new memories.
Director Jim Kohlberg is directing his first film here, and in the screenplay by Gwyn Lurie and Gary Marks he has a difficult task ahead of him: to make the story palpable emotionally without turning maudelin. It’s not an easy task with such material, and he succeeds wonderfully through his respectful handling of the story (which is based on an actual event) and the heartfelt performances of the actors. Simmons, in particular, stands out; known best for his comic supporting turns in films from the “Spider-Man” trilogy to “Juno,” he shows a level of depth and pain to this character that most people might find surprising. It’s arguably the best performance I’ve seen in this relatively young year, and it makes me curious to see what other challenges Simmons might have in store for us over the years.
