Review of "The Music Never Stopped"

On Monday night, I got an opportunity to see the movie "The Music Never Stopped." The movie centers around a man's journey as he recovers from a brain tumor and tries to reconnect with his family.

My interest in this movie came from the fact that one of the central characters is a music therapist! The music therapy world has been abuzz lately about this film, and for good reason. This is an opportunity for millions of people to learn a little bit about music therapy, and in our line of work, that's a great thing. The question was, would the film makers portray music therapy accurately?

After seeing the film, I am beyond pleased to say, they nailed it. Every music therapist should be thrilled with how our field was described in the film. It was accurate, factual, and highlighted some of the wonderful benefits music therapy can provide.

The music therapist in the movie provides a quick, accurate, easy to understand definition of the field, but the real highlight for MT's is the scenes that feature the actual therapeutic interventions. There are several such scenes. For the most part, the MT does music listening exercises and melodic intonation interventions.

My only concern (and it's a VERY minor one) is that some people who watch the movie may see the music listening interventions only at face value. I'm sure most music therapists have been asked at one time or another "Music therapy? Do you, like, play records for people and make them feel better?" To some, the interventions in the movie may appear to be just that. However, when you watch closely, you can see that it goes much deeper. The MT carefully observes her client's reaction to the music and adjusts the session accordingly (and quite skillfully, I might add), guiding and talking him through the emotional issues that arise from hearing these songs again.

Again, that's a super nit-picky criticism and it's truly not a point of concern. It provides a great introduction to music therapy that anyone can understand. It will be a great talking point for music therapists to discuss what we do with those who have seen the film, and it will work as an excellent lead off into explaining what else we do as therapists.

As far as the movie itself goes, I truly enjoyed it (and this is coming from someone who is typically hypercritical of movies). I believe it does an excellent job of illustrating how health issues affect more than just the patient. The whole family feels the pain of an illness. Now, this does mean that the movie gets pretty sad at times (so if you're a crier, you may want to pack extra tissues). Despite this, it's a great "feel-good" movie that is most definitely worth seeing.

Look for it in theaters soon!