The music in Raise Your Voice ... manages to bring home what the uninspired script doesn't: Something in you dies if you don't express your musical talent.
Raise Your Voice (2004)
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Reviews Counted:82
Fresh:13
Rotten:69
Average Rating:3.7/10
Consensus: A bland, formulaic tween version of Fame.
Theatrical Release:2004
Box Office: $10,411,980
Synopsis: Terri Fletcher (Hilary Duff) is your typical sweet-hearted, small-town girl and she always obeys her intensely overprotective dad (David Keith), but when she gets accepted to a summer program at a... Terri Fletcher (Hilary Duff) is your typical sweet-hearted, small-town girl and she always obeys her intensely overprotective dad (David Keith), but when she gets accepted to a summer program at a prestigious LA music school and he forbids her to go, she realizes it's time to break away. With the help of her cool aunt (Rebecca De Mornay), Terri figures out a ruse to sneak off to LA and seize the chance to actualize her musical dreams. Once there, it's harsh wake-up time however, as she realizes being naive, adorable, blonde, un-pierced, and un-tattooed means being ostracized in this too-cool musical community. Luckily John Corbett, a sympathetic music teacher, is there to help, and there's time for romance to bloom with a British classmate (Oliver James). Before this little star can truly blossom though, she still has to cope with the trauma of losing her brother in a car accident (it's left her terrified of bright lights, a real problem for a stage performer) and then there's the matter of telling the truth to her furious father. Don't worry too much though, for Duff's effortless charisma lifts this sturdy, comfortably worn-in vehicle easily over the bumpier clichés, and delivers it safely to its inspiring destination. DeMornay is also good as the aunt, who shares Terri's incredibly blonde hair gene. [More]
Starring: Hilary Duff, Jason Ritter, John Corbett, Rebecca De Mornay
Starring: Hilary Duff, Jason Ritter, John Corbett, Rebecca De Mornay, David Keith, Rita Wilson, Oliver James
Director: Sean McNamara
Director: Sean McNamara
Screenwriter: Sam Schreiber
Producer: David Brookwell, Sara Risher, William Shively, Anthony Rhulen
Studio: New Line Cinema
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Release:
Feb 15, 2005
Reviews for Raise Your Voice
A teen movie so inspirational and heartwarming that it comes with its very own lip gloss.
It's particularly good at capturing that time of life when you simultaneously believe everything is possible and that each tiny misstep is the end of the world.
Duff at 17 is so easy to take. She radiates without smugness, like the blessed offspring of Marilyn Monroe and a virile marshmallow.
Under Sean McNamara's direction, the film seems sappy and superficial, a voice barely raised to a whisper.
Such treacle you'd have to be a serious fan to get through the thing without losing your lunch.
One could be forgiven for thinking of Raise Your Voice as a Disney Channel special that was mistakenly spun out into the multiplexes.
Not since the students spilled out onto the streets in Fame has musical performance been so infectious a part of coming of age.
The filmmakers make a big show of striving for sincerity and substance, but they so load the dice that their movie is heavy-going from start to finish.
Gives Duff another chance to play a contemporary Cinderella, but she still isn't able to find real character depth. Then again, the script doesn't demand much of her.
A boring, badly written, cliche-heavy outing with lousy production values, various moral messages unfit for childhood consumption and songs from the known-carcinogen school of pop.
A miserable waste of a harebrained script fleshed out with mediocre performances by a flailing cast.
The film suffers from a syndrome I'll call the Pop Princess's New Clothes. Hilary can't really sing, and neither can Terri, so you can't help but wonder, what's the big whoop?
What Hilary Duff will do when she grows up is anybody's guess, but for now she's the Duffinator, and things could be a lot worse.
Like most performers who chuck TV fame for the big screen, [Duff] follows one grim vehicle (A Cinderella Story) with this even worse one just a few months later.
If it's possible, each successive Hilary Duff film seems to become more formulaic than the one before... just as each has become more predictable and treacly.
Her dad was right about one thing. Something terrible did happen to her in Los Angeles. She made this movie.
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