“Music Within” review
by V.E. on July 29th, 2010
filed under entertainment, recap/review
I almost didn’t write this review. That is, when I watch a movie, I feel obligated to review it, if only for my own use later, when I’m trying to remember if I’ve seen a movie or not at all. In this case, I nearly ditched the whole thing, but then I thought, “Well, I have to write something about it, even if it’s just 140 characters on Twitter.” But then I realized that I had more than 140 characters worth of thoughts about this movie, so I’m going along with it. This time. (As you know, I do sometimes ditch the “I must review everything I watch” edict, as in the case of CANAAN.) As a note: the quotations I use here are approximate, except for the one attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, which I wrote down so I could remember it.
Summary
Music Within (wiki) is a movie starring Ron Livingston about the life of Richard Pimentel, a deaf man who had a hand in passing the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. Richard grows up in Portland, Oregon, with a crazy white mother and an Asian-American man who ran a grocery as a father. In elementary school one day, his teacher tells the class, “Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote, ‘Most people go to their graves with their music still inside them.‘ What do you think he meant?” The teacher was also the head of the school’s speech club, so when he asked for volunteers to tell the class something they may not know about the volunteer, Richard raised his hand and the teacher knew he’d be a great speaker.
Fast forward: Richard tries desperately to get into college. He doesn’t have a lot of money and he needs a scholarship, but he can give speeches like nobody’s business. He auditions for a spot in the speech department. The head of the department tells him, “You’re probably the most talented speaker I’ve ever seen, but you haven’t lived. I’m not accepting you. Come back when you’ve lived and can put some weight behind your words.” Richard is devastated, but he refuses to give up. That same day (or thereabouts), he enlists in the army and shortly thereafter, he’s shipped off to Vietnam.
While in Vietnam, he sustains an injury that renders him almost completely deaf with a loud ringing in his ears. He returns to Oregon intent (again) on attending college, this time through the GI Bill. He’s denied because he’s deaf. He goes to college anyway and pays for it by working at a strip club (where the dancing girls there treat him like a son) and entering (and winning) speech contests in the area. One day, he meets Art Honeyman (played by Michael Sheen), a genius with cerebral palsy 
who is confined to a wheelchair. Upon learning that Richard can understand Art (presumably because, when he speaks, his words are deliberate and pronounced), they become fast friends.
They meet Christine (Melissa George) on campus, a relative free spirit who becomes romantically involved with Richard while he fights for the rights of disabled people, including himself. He learns to read lips and holds down at least one job where his employers don’t even know he’s deaf. He also works at an office trying to find other (disabled) veterans jobs, arguing that they deserve a chance, too.
One night, Art calls him and tells him it’s his birthday and all he wants is pancakes. Richard is amiable to this, so they head out to what is purported to be the best pancake house in town. After Richard hauls Art up probably forty steps (there is no ramp), they head into the restaurant and are greeted by the disgusted stares of both the staff and the other patrons. A waitress tells them that the establishment has the right to refuse service to anyone, and that they should leave. Richard argues for Art, “But we just want pancakes. We’re not going to cause anyone trouble; we heard this was the best pancake house in town and we want some pancakes. Our money is as good as anyone else’s.” The waitress (rather heartlessly, I thought) tells Art that he should have died at birth and that if they don’t leave now, she’ll call the police. With some effort, Art throws a quarter on the table and says, “Call them.” So, they’re both arrested for a law on the books at the time that basically made it illegal to be ugly in public.
Richard redoubles his efforts to make workplaces more disabled-friendly—and loses Christine in the process. She loves him but when he chooses a(nother) conference over her, she calls it quits. He gets a call from the President’s Office and begins working on the text that will become the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). After a fellow friend and veteran commits suicide, Richard is at the end of his rope. He nearly offs himself, but Christine stops him.
Finally, he finishes the text for the ADA and shows it to Art, who reads it. Art tells him that he (Richard) gets disabled people and that this document reflects that, to which Richard is supremely relieved. Later, they watch on TV as President George H.W. Bush signs the ADA into law. Even later, they go back to the pancake house (which now has a ramp, according to law), where a (different) waitress genially takes their order and brings them pancakes. Richard says, “We’ve waited 20 years for this, Art; these better be good pancakes.” The movie ends with Richard giving a speech about why it’s important to make the world a better place for all people, not just able-bodied people.
Thoughts
It’s a feel-good movie, I’ll give you that. Michael Sheen does very well playing a man with cerebral palsy, and Ron Livingston does well as a deaf man, but I want to know why they didn’t cast actors who actually have those disabilities? (Not to mention that Richard Pimentel is part Asian-American, but the actor who plays him on screen is about as white as they come.) I don’t know what the dynamics of hiring disabled people is in acting, or if it’s all politics, or what, but it seems like they’d be more aware of who they got to play the characters in a movie that’s basically about able-bodied people versus disabled people. Also, Music Within outright fails the Bechdel Test. Over all, it’s a good story, but the director, casting director, and producer (etc.) have a long way to go in regards to execution.
I much rather enjoyed learning about Richard Pimentel himself. He gave a commencement speech in 2008 at Portland State University (where he attended years before), which made me cry, and which I highly recommend. (You can also read the transcript.) I don’t know if I cried because I’d seen the movie and it was a good capstone, or because the speech was just that good. Either way, it was much better than the utterly forgettable commencement speaker I had at my graduation. (shudder)
Going back to the O.W. Holmes quotation: Most people go to their graves with their music still inside them. I thought about that a lot through out the movie and since then while writing this review. I’ve come to learn that OWH was… well, not really a nice guy. Maybe not even a good one. But in this case, I think he’s probably right. That said, I have no advice for people on how to find their music or release it to the world, if they even want to do that. I think my music is writing. I don’t know if I’m going to be a person who dies with my writing still inside me, but I hope not.
