User reviews

"Shine" purports to tell the story of David Helfgott (Geoffrey Rush, who plays the adult Helfgott), a promising pianist who overcame mental illness, with the help of his wife, and returned to performing.

The 1996 film is actually a fictionalized version of Helfgott's life - but even had it not been based on a true story, it remains a powerful, intriguing film.

David is the child of German émigrés who now live in Australia. His father Peter (Armin Mueller-Stahl) is a self-taught pianist who teaches David his same love of piano and classical music. There is love there, but as portrayed in the movie, Peter is a rigid man who gives his son mixed signals. He drives his son to succeed as a pianist, teaching him that winning is everything, and yet, when David has opportunities that would take him away from the family, Peter won't permit it. The reason for this is that Peter and his wife lost relatives in the Holocaust. Peter is also given to physical abuse toward David when he loses his temper.

David finally gets away from him and attends the Royal Conservatory in London, where, with the help of his teacher (John Gielgud), he wins an important competition but then suffers a severe nervous breakdown. The rest of the movie deals with the road back, which leads him home to Australia and to his wife, Gillian. Gillian is actually his second wife, though the first marriage isn't mentioned in the film.

The dominant performances belong to Rush and Mueller-Stahl. Rush does a brilliant job of showing us the likable but stuttering David who speaks rapidly and repetitively, expressing himself through music. Mueller-Stahl as the tortured Peter is fabulous, a man who is both monstrous and pitiable. In a small role, John Gielgud of course makes a fine impression as an elderly teacher, a wonderful pianist himself, who believes in David's talent.

The best scene is David playing Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #3 - Helfgott's own recording of the piece is used - and the aftermath. What I missed in this film is music - there was a lot of talk about David's promise, but until the Rachmaninoff not much playing.

Helfgott's work today has been deeply criticized for being - well, lousy. A review in The New York Times of one of his concerts is horrible. The reviewer, however, mentions that Helfgott occasionally showed vestiges of excellent technique. I think it's safe to assume that his playing nowadays is more erratic than it was in his earlier years. There are several examples of Helfgott's playing in the movie: "La Campanella," "Hungarian Rhapsody No 2 In C Sharp Minor," "Flight of the Bumble Bee," Rachmaninoff's "Prelude In C Sharp Minor, Opus 3, No. 2," the previously mentioned Rachmaninoff 3, and Liszt's "Sospiro," and it is all quite stunning. Rush does the fingerings himself. One of the comments also claims that Helfgott's wife has Helfgott perform on no medication so that he'll seem crazy - it's common for performers on medication for mental problems to have to cycle off of it before performing. I don't think the commenter has any idea what Helfgot is like on his medication - certainly in the film, he acts strangely.

"Shine" is highly recommended for its fantastic performances, beautiful music, and its inspiring story.

This was a very interesting movie and pleasant surprise, although sometimes that theme of the obsessive parent driving a kid crazy gets overworked. Nonetheless, it's a very well-made movie.

Geoffrey Rush is fascinating in the lead role as "David Helfgott." However, I would give equal kudos to Noah Taylor, who played Helfgott as a teenager, and to Armin Mueller-Stahl, who was Helfgott's father. They were just as impressive as Rush.

This is a supposedly true-life story of child prodigy piano player from Australia. As you can imagine, the music in here is excellent. Even better is the cinematography. Wow, this looks and sounds fantastic on DVD.

Although not always pleasant to watch, the story is riveting; hard to put down once you've started watching. The ending turned me off a bit with the overt plug for astrology, but is a happy one for all parties and at least leaves the viewer feeling satisfied.

In all, a very intense, beautifully-photographed biography.

This is a good film in every sense but will mean most to fathers with strong views :).

The story of a brilliant young pianist whose relationship with his father drives him to some sort of mental illness. Watchable, absorbing, brilliantly edited, deeply seriously moving, one of the rare films that pays attention to incidental sound. Wonderful direction and acting. This is a seriously good film.

This movie is definitely in my top five favorite movies of all time. It is unbelievably brilliant. Geoffrey Rush, dare I say, is perhaps the greatest actor of modern times. His performance alone is worth watching, let alone the outstanding supporting cast! Definitely not in typical Hollywood fashion, the movie is a truly great indie film. A must see for music lovers and indie film lovers alike.

David is a stuttering, rambling man having suffer a complete breakdown as a young man. However when he was a child his skills on the piano were unmatched. Driven by his father, opportunities open up in front of him to go abroad to learn, but his father denies him the chance. He leaves for London where he drives himself to the point of exhaustion before coming back home to find his father has disowned him.

It took me years to finally watch this film. I was still in Northern Ireland when it came out in the cinema and such films were not permitted to cross our borders, lest they keep the latest action movies from our 1 or 2 screen cinemas! So away from the hype and the Oscar hoopla I sat to watch this film and found myself easily taken in by it. The story is the true story of David Helfgott who was a boy genius before his breakdown. The film starts with him as an adult then jumps back to see him as a child. This approach works well to allow us to see the `end result' as it were, before we see what would be considered the causation factors. These factors are a little heart breaking to watch but they are very well delivered. As an adult, David is comic, warming and tragic. The pain in his life is brought out very well.

A great deal of the praise for this must lie with the wonderful cast. Rush got his Oscar of course and I'll leave it to the users on the message boards to argue over whether or not you can be the lead actor with screen time of less than half the film! He is great, walking a difficult line with a `disabled' character but managing not to just make it a caricature at any point. David as a child is very well played by Rafalowicz and does more of the development work than Rush and hence gets less credit than he deserves for making us care for the adult David. Mueller-Stahl is as good as he can be and gives a great performance, the only downside being that he doesn't age a single day between the adult and child sections of the story - surely some makeup could have been used?

Overall this is a very enjoyable human story that is driven by several really strong performances in key roles. The story keeps it's tone light but yet still manages to be dramatic and, in some scenes far too touching to avoid being slightly moved. The music is beautiful when it is called on to be and dramatic at other times - the director does very well to make the intense music translate into intense scenes in the film. Overall a simple story of a man but one that is interesting and a lot more moving that I expected it to be.

"Shine" is one of the great movies of the '90's, that became an unexpected success in 1996 and was the movie that earned Geoffrey Rush his as of yet only Oscar win and got the movie 6 more Oscar nominations, including best director and best picture.

The movie shows how Australian born David Helfgott gets formed and influenced in his early life by his demanding and abusive father (wonderfuly played by Armin Mueller-Stahl), who is in strict control of the family. He asks a lot from the already very unstable David and influences ever step in his life, probably also to make up for his own shortcomings in life. He's an unpredictable character with two faces and you can really feel the fear he puts in the family and David in particular. Things go worse and worse mentally for David as he grows up and eventually goes to study in England at the Royal College of Music. He has a breakdown which for once and for all definitely labels him as a psychotic man. His personality could definitely been described as crazy.

He gets perfectly and beautifully portrayed by Geoffrey Rush, who truly deserved the Oscar he received for his role. But in fact he is only in the movie for perhaps halve the running time. For "Shine" uses lots of flashbacks about Helfgott's early life and as a young adult, when he is being played by different actors. One of those actors is the know very well known Noah Taylor, who also plays the part fine. Also really impressive is Armin Mueller-Stahl. He doesn't usually have very big parts in English spoken movies but in this movie he plays one of his bigger and more interesting roles. It's a true memorable performance from him and he also truly deserved his Oscar nomination for this movie. I keep thinking it's a great shame he got discovered so late by the big-money movie industry, since he is already close to 80 by now, which should mean that his biggest and greatest roles should already be behind him by now. But who knows, some actors just go on forever, till a very old age. Take for instance John Gielgud, who also stars in this movie. At the time he was already well over 90 years old and he would continue to play on in many more great and big productions, till his death in 2000. Some actors are just truly born as actors. It simply is in their blood and they can't stop playing.

Moments in Helfgott's life are never portrayed too long but also never too short. This means that the story always comes right to the point and doesn't dance around it. The movie becomes very effective because of this and on top of that gets presented with a good steady pace. It's a reason why this movie is really one of the better autobiographic movies ever made. It's a really great directed and told movie, from Scott Hicks.

But of course like every good biopic, the movie doesn't only presents facts and some things are altered, in order to enhance the movie and its story or characters. For instance right after this movie the real Helfgott became a true full God, while in all honesty David Helfgott is a great piano player but just not the genius one as portrayed in this movie. It's kind of like the piano man. The mysterious mute man who was found in Kent England in 2005. It was said he was a brilliant piano player, while in fact he just simply knew how to play a piano well but was by no means a great or professional player. Just like David Helfgott, it are just the unusual circumstances and character personalities that makes people say they are geniuses, rather than it's an objective reflection of their actual qualities. But like I said, this isn't anything unusual to do for a biopic, to play around a little with the facts and it certainly is no objection when it actually enhances the movie. "Shine" truly benefits from its approach and story.

I also enjoyed David Hirschfelder nice little musical score (also Oscar-nominated). Of course the movie also benefits from it's classical compositions that are being featured. It's of course a very musical movie, since it's about the life of a musician but you really don't need a classic musical lover to enjoy or to appreciate this movie though.

The movie ends quite abrupt and perhaps not satisfying enough but this is of course simply due to the fact that David Helfgot is still alive and active today. Who knows, perhaps they could had better waited for another 30 years to come up with a movie about his life, for who knows what more strange and beautiful moments his life shall know.

Perhaps it's not the most stylish or greatest made movie but the combination of the interesting unique story, pace and main character (and of course Geoffrey Rush his performance of him) are what makes this movie such a basically flawless (you simply just forgive the movie for its flaws and shortcomings while you're watching it) and captivating one to watch.

10/10

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When I originally saw this film in the mid-90's, I was absolutely devastated throughout the first forty-five minutes. So much so, I was pretty much uncontrollably weeping, much to the chagrin of the friend I went with. Time has softened the film a lot for me, but it still remains a powerful, tender and somewhat inspirational film about a piano prodigy who has led a pretty tragic life. Geoffrey Rush is unbelievable as the piano prodigy David Helfgott, and although the film is kind of sewn up a little quickly with the Vanessa Redgrave subplot (what about Helfgott made her so in love with him in a short period of time as to want to marry him?) it is a very well done film that I highly recommend to just about anyone, but especially musicians and music lovers.

--Shelly

DAMN, is Geoffrey Rush a great actor, or what? I saw "Les Miserables" on video and "Shakespeare in Love" in the theater shortly after seeing "Shine", and I didn't even realize it was the same guy. Very, VERY well deserved Oscar for him. The movie is very good, of course, with an interesting story about how genius is both a blessing and a curse-but it's Rush's show, and he uses every minute of it. And I do love Rachmaninov, so that's a bonus for me. Quietly spectacular.

SHINE is a compelling and touching story about music, talent, performance, pressure, and redemption. Scott Hicks' masterpiece is difficult to summarise in any traditional review or comment because it touches upon so many facets and ranges of human emotion. It is no surprise that this tale, based 'loosely' on the life of pianist David Helfgott (I say loosely because this is by no means a strict documentary, as many liberties are taken with the script) was nominated for the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars, and were it not for THE English PATIENT, would have walked away with the grand prize.

Geoffrey Rush as the adult Helfgott is amazing and his Best Lead Actor victory for his portrayal of this musical genius was well-deserved as the performance was simply breathtaking. A popular complaint is that Rush was only on screen for less than half the run-time of the film and as such should not have really won. The counterargument is such: it is the quality of the performance that counts, not the screen-time. Armin Muller-Stahl is equally impressive and deserved his nomination. My only gripe is that Noah Taylor was not given at least a nod for his portrayal of the younger Helfgott.

The writing, cinematography, and musical score are top-notch and transform this Motion Picture from good to great. 8/10. 3.5 stars (out of 4). Should enter my Top 250 at 206. Highly recommended.

Somewhat reminiscent (in the basic story, at least) of "A Beautiful Mind," "Shine" offers a take on the story of Australian pianist David Helfgott. I understand that there's debate on the accuracy of the film, both in terms of Helfgott's background and his piano playing skill. Knowing nothing of his background and little of the skills needed to play the piano, I'll choose to avoid the controversy and deal simply with the movie. It started off very strongly. The first half offered a powerful exploration of Helfgott's childhood, at the hands of a domineering father as well as a look at the early indications of both his abilities as a pianist and the first hints of mental illness. It was a little bit slow paced, but interesting nonetheless. Something happened, though, at the point at which David seemed to go truly insane after his Rachmaninoff recital. The movie itself seemed to lose its focus at that point, and it became what seemed to me to be a largely unconnected series of events offering a taste (but not much more) of Helfgott's later life in a rush, which was far less interesting than the first half. Geoffrey Rush was truly excellent as Helfgott, as was Alex Rafalowicz, who played Helfgott as a child. I was also impressed with Armin Mueller-Stahl's performance as Helfgott's father. The character of Gillian (played by Lynn Redgrave, who became Helfgott's wife) seemed to be introduced far too quickly, and I had no idea how they ended up suddenly married. Redgrave did well with the part, but there was little substance to the character. As far as I recall, there was also no mention of the fact that Helfgott had been previously married.

The comparatively weaker second half pulled this down a fair bit in my estimation. In the end, I'd say it was OK, but not much more than that. 6/10

If you're looking for a fantastic film about an eccentric, self-imploding, mentally unstable, real-life musician, check out The Devil & Daniel Johnston. Based on its reputation, I thought the Rush performance might be entertaining & impressive enough to make Shine engaging; and while he's good, he's really not in it much, the movie focusing more on the daddy-issue flashbacks, a character motivation that is among the most boring & cliched ever.

I don't now why but when I first viewed this a few years back I did not care for it, but after watching it again I was very impressed. Maybe because I have grown more of an appreciation for classical music in that timeframe. I really don't understand how I could have missed the outstanding portrayal of the nuturing/stultifying father-son relationship, or the moving way that David can only express himself via the piano (notice how he speaks in virtually only apothems). This is a very great film.

Tortured genius, domineering father, piano music, blah, blah, et cetera. "Shine" may be a good movie, but its best friends couldn't call it special.

The script isn't at all strong and Hicks tries to make up the deficit with creative presentation of one kind or another. David is obsessed - at any rate, the film is obsessed, it's not clear to what extent David is - with Rachmaninov's third piano concerto (implausibly referred to as the "Rach 3"), the first movement in particular. We never quite hear this movement. We hear in the background on an old gramophone (throbbing dotted notes in the bass entirely inaudible); its themes are woven into the film's score; and in the big climactic scene where David plays it in public for the first time, sound effects are distorted so that we hear almost everything EXCEPT Rachmaninov's music as it really is. And clearly a lot of work went into arranging the shots in that climactic scene. The result is a much more creatively presented "moment of truth" than is usual in this kind of film.

If the presentation isn't threadbare cliché, though, much of the content is. "Shine" does all the standard scenes very well - moments of triumph here, moments of despair there - but lacks an overall story that might make some sense of them. (This is particularly odd given that Scott Hicks felt not at all concerned with sticking to the facts of Helfgott's life, or even getting it vaguely right.) In the end it feels like an exceptionally well made nothing very much. Watch it for the performances - those of Noah Taylor and Geoffrey Rush in particular.

This is a marvelous bio-pic of a man who suffers throughout life for his art. David Helfgott, an Australian, is a wunderkind pianist who is abused and betrayed by his father, and robbed of his childhood. It is sort of the classic smothering that takes place when a sensitive artist loses his soul for a time. Eventually, Helfgott gets to perform but finds himself immersed in schizophrenia and mental illness for years. The world lost him for a time. But there's more to the story. Geoffrey Rush, whom I had never heard of at the time, is brilliant as the damaged artist. He expresses the deep depression of the character and his genius. The film is able to show the darkness of the soul through its cinematography. The film is inspiring but only because of its portrayal of pain

Pianist David Helfgott (Geoffrey Rush), driven by his father and teachers, has a breakdown. Years later he returns to the piano, to popular if not critical acclaim.

I have to say this film did not personally strike me. That is not to say it is a bad film. It is very good film. But just not one that really captured my attention or made me really care about the characters. There is something to be said about talent, genius, mental instability and many other things, and this film says a little bit about each of those. But it did not hit quite hard enough.

On the plus side, we have Geoffrey Rush. Today (2015), he is probably better known for his part in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, but some of us remember when he had some great dramatic roles. This is one, as is his great work in "Quills".

this was one of the best movies i've ever seen..in fact this one is my favorite movie..also the scenery and the cast is really fantastic.And I became one of Geoffrey Rush's fans after watching this.. it is a movie that gives great amount of inspiration to people those gave up their dreams for any reasons or sake of their families,pressures.. It also has funny scenes (like the ones in the restaurant which David's gift gets explored again,while he's playing the flight of the bumble bee) The deep and sharp-cut character profiles also makes the movie more interesting.Everyone who is interested in music and arts should watch this movie and see the gifted persons' sacrificing their lives and pains and troubles (like demons crowding together) before getting understood and spreading their blaze around..

This movie is thrilling and so emotional that i think you should be mentally and emotionally old enough to actually be able to understand the true meaning. To understand how someone goes through a mental illness is not for any 'sane' person to understand. Although the hard work put into the movie does justify some aspects of it, the movie as a whole does not tell the truth. I think that the movie skips very important parts of the story such as the time David spent in the mental institute, and we do not get the understanding that he has moved from America to Austrlia. THis is what i believe watch it and see for your self!

A brilliant film, an intense story, very well performed and directed. One of my favorite films ever. I think George Geoffrey was incredible in this film...he became Helfgot and so did Mueller-Stahl in his role as the father. Sir John Gelgud plays a very important role in the drama as the teacher that marks a notable difference in getting the best from Helfgot. It's a chant to courage, love and music. A must for all music lovers...usually emotional people. It can be very useful for teaching parents in how not to raise children with talent and it shows how overwhelmed love can be sometimes dangerous for the physical and mental safety of our children.

I just can't believe there's nobody else who feels as I do about this movie. I'm not a film snob, and will try to see the good in most movies, but I just found this one hugely objectionable. It actually made me so angry, sitting watching it in the cinema, that I nearly became one of those people who makes derisive noises & spoils it for everyone else (managed to keep a lid on it though, just barely). It's so, SO intensely irritating! I have a feeling nobody here will agree but I need to express this. It's annoying because it has:

1)Lame, clichéd characterizations (not the lead, but supporting/minor characters, eg his family, particularly all the women in the family) 2)Patronizing depiction of mental illness (I don't mean to criticize Rush's acting here. It's more the combined effect of script/direction/production) 3)Incredibly heavy-handed, clichéd depiction of the father's issues resulting from surviving the Holocaust (ditto above comment; I didn't have a problem with the actual performance) 4)General oversimplification, hollowness and reliance on emotional manipulation to cover up a lack of insight

The above intruded so much on my consciousness that I just couldn't ignore them & let myself get caught up in the music or the story. I did try.

OK, I know ... you all hate me, and all the critics from all the papers disagreed too. I just had to get it out of my system. Sorry.