Adelaide, Australia. David Helfgott is a child piano prodigy pressured by his overbearing father Peter to dedicate more and more of his life to music. David visits a music teacher, and wins several competitions, yet when he is invited to study in the US, his father burns the letter of invitation in the fire stove, claiming that David would destroy the family at the age of 14 if he left. Several years later, a teenage David defies his father and accepts to study at the Royal College of Music in London. He experiences a nervous breakdown while playing Rachmaninoff's 3rd Concerto in public, is diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and sent to a mental asylum. As a grown up, David plays a piano at a restaurant, but has to be under surveillance by caretakers. He marries Gillian and returns to fame by playing concerts.
A disputed biopic of Australian pianist David Helfgott, "Shine" is an emotional and unconventional film about people who devote their whole life to their talent and passion, until this takes a toll on their private life and mental health, yet it will not be for everyone's taste. The film's main problem is that the first hour, which follows David's struggles as a kid and a teenager, is much more coherent and easier to identify with than the last 40 minutes which follow David as a grown up who suffers from schizoaffective disorder and is sometimes difficult to "digest" due to his manic fast talking and inappropriate behavior (jumping on a trampoline in the garden wearing only a raincoat, so his butt is seen each time he falls down). Cinematically, this second segment is a "dead end", since the movie does not know what to do with a grown up David, who is lost. The best moments are the one involving David as a kid who has to endure his strict father Peter, who tells him that "only the strong survive" and that "the weak will be crushed like insects", pressuring him to win as many competitions as possible, causing the kid to revolt in unusual ways (i.e. defecating in the bathtub). The highlight is his first live concert in London, when the sound suddenly disappears, as David plays the piano keyboard on "autopilot", signalling his imminent mental collapse. Geoffrey Rush is strong and energetic as the grown up David, though he takes up only 45 minutes of the film's running time, and thus almost feels like a supporting actor who shows up in the final chapter. Some of his babel has charm (when asked how many music competitions he took part in, he drily replies: "You can't lose them all"), yet a fair share leads nowhere and shows why the authors rushed to conclude his segment faster than his coming-of-age one. However, he has a small triumph when he plays Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" with such energy that it sweeps you off your feet.
Grade:++
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