The Music Never Stopped | |
---|---|
Directed by | Jim Kohlberg |
Produced by | Neal Moritz |
Written by | Gwyn Lurie Gary Marks |
Based on |
The Last Hippie by Oliver Sacks |
Starring |
J.K. Simmons Julia Ormond Mía Maestro Lou Taylor Pucci |
Music by | Paul Cantelon |
Cinematography | Stephen Kazmierski |
Edited by | Keith Reamer |
Production
company |
Essential Pictures
Mr. Tamborine Man |
Distributed by | Roadside Attractions |
Release date
|
|
Running time
|
105 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $150,515 |
The Music Never Stopped is a 2011 American drama film directed by Jim Kohlberg, who makes his directorial debut from a script by Gwyn Lurie and Gary Marks.
It premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, and was given a limited release in the US on March 18, 2011.
Based on Oliver Sacks' essay The Last Hippie, the film tells the father-son relationship between Henry Sawyer (J.K. Simmons) and his son, Gabriel (Lou Taylor Pucci), who suffers from a brain tumor that prevents him from forming new memories. Henry, with his son unable to shed light on their strained relationship, must connect with him through music.
The film currently holds a 65% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 49 reviews.Ty Burr of The Boston Globe remarked the film was "one to remember", also calling it "sentimental, yet so honest and eccentric that it rises above schmaltz."Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club compared the film's story to The King's Speech, giving praise to J.K. Simmons and Lou Taylor Pucci and calling the film a "powerful, even shattering look at music’s power to unite where it once divided."