August Rush

August Rush is a 2007 drama directed by Kirsten Sheridan and written by Nick Castle, James V. Hart, Kirsten Sheridan and Paul Castro, and produced by Richard Barton Lewis.

Cast

* Freddie Highmore - Evan Taylor
* Keri Russell - Lyla Novacek
* Jonathan Rhys Meyers - Louis Connelly
* Robin Williams - Wizard
* Terrence Howard - Richard Jeffries
* William Sadler - Thomas Novacek
* Jamia Simone Nash - Hope
* Jonathan Carfagno - Student Photograph


The main character, Evan Taylor, can hear music in everything around him. He is being raised in an orphanage with no contact with his parents, although he insists that he can "hear" them. Evan believes that the music that he can hear in everything from the wind in wheat fields to the buzzing of electrical lines, is some kind of message from his parents, whom he wants desperately to find. During his stay at the orphanage, Evan meets a counselor, who gives a name card to him, introducing himself as a New York child service department member.

Through a series of flashbacks, we learn that his parents were a famous concert cellist named Lyla Novacek, and Louis Connelly, an Irish guitarist and lead singer from a rock band. They met and fell in love in one night, but through a series of events, were separated. Late in her pregnancy, Lyla was hit by a car and was told by her father that her child didn't survive. Lyla and Louis both had trouble concentrating on playing music and were miserable without each other.

During one night, he hears what he considers "the ultimate call." He follows the sound with the name card from the man but eventually falls asleep. Evan is picked up by a trucker, is taken to New York, and the trucker called the number on the card. He is told to stay in a certain spot but after the wind blows the card into a vent, he wanders around the city and finds a black boy named Arthur playing the guitar. Attracted to the music, he follows Arthur and falls in with a group of street kids, all musicians of some kind, who are being cared for by "Wizard". Wizard is a busker who sees the children as "investments". Evan gets access to a guitar and begins to play music for the first time. He turns out to be a child prodigy, and while in search of a better name, Wizard gives him the name August Rush, both as an alias and a stage name after seeing a commercial on a random truck driving by.