Shine: Scott Hicks

If you were to ask me which of the three actors who portrayed the lead role of David Helfgott in Shine deserved to win an Oscar, then Geoffrey Rush would have been my last choice.  Don't get me wrong, Rush's performance as the adult Helfgott, the Australian concert pianist who suffered from schizoaffective disorder, was magnificent.  But his role was strictly limited to the first few minutes and the last third of the film.  The first part of the film which portrays Helfgott's childhood under his tyrannical father featured an astonishing performance by Alex Rafalowicz.  Good child performances are hard to come by.  So much praise should be given to Rafalowicz who gave a performance that most adult actors would envy.  We can see him begin to crack and shatter as his father, a Holocaust survivor hell-bent on his children's success, forces him to practice the piano endlessly.  When Helfgott rebels against his father and travels to the Royal College of Music in London, he is played by Noah Taylor.  Again, Taylor perfectly portrays Helfgott as an obsessive student on the cusp of a mental breakdown. When he does finally crumble during a competition immediately after playing Rachmaninoff's 3rd Concerto, the audience can feel nothing but the utmost pity and heart-break.  But of course, much like the real life story that inspired it, Shine needed to conclude with a happy ending.  So Rush portrays Helfgott as a fast-talking, giggling madman whose sanity is restored through the love of a kind woman.  If an Oscar HAD to be given to one of the actors playing Helfgott, I honestly think that Rafalowicz should have received it.  But even that couldn't forgive the injustice of Armin Mueller-Stahl's loss of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor to Cuba Gooding Jr in Jerry Maguire (1996).  Mueller-Stahl's performance as Helfgott's father was the stuff of legend. Though cruel, it was constantly apparent that Helfgott's father hated dispensing the discipline he felt was vital to keeping his family together. Haunted by dreams of concentration camps, he feared the outside world and honestly believed that his actions were in his children's best interests. It takes a special kind of performance to make a child abuser sympathetic.  But regardless, Shine is a decent movie.  Its cliched plot concerning a mentally unstable genius beating the odds is given fresh life by its acting.  And, hey, who needs awards anyway?

7/10