I must start this review by telling you how much I despise the title Music of the Heart; NASA's Think Tank couldn't come up with something more generic. Wes Craven's new pic was more provocatively (and appropriately) called 50 Violins in development, and the switch only proves how far distributor Miramax has strayed from its edgy roots. Almost as infuriating is the positioning of an 'N Sync/Gloria Estafan duet as Music of the Heart's theme song--an unlistenable ballad opens and closes a film about music appreciation.

Based on the Oscar-nominated documentary Small Wonders, Music of the Heart stars Streep as Roberta Guaspari, a divorced mother of two sons who develops, at the urging of Brian (Aidan Quinn), a man she met in high school and encounters again later in life, a violin program for Harlem gradeschoolers. The reception from staff, students, and parents of students is cool at first (racial issues, for the most part), but Roberta's dedication eventually wins over all three parties affected.

The story shares not only its basic outline with Mr. Holland's Opus but also an extremely frustrating "X Years Later" title card that weakly compacts Roberta's experiences as an educator. (Are both movies telling us the life of a teacher is so repetitive that the intervening years between getting hired and retiring are a write-off?) I preferred what Craven had going in its first half: the moralizing was kept to a minimum, the narrative took unexpected turns (I did not foresee the outcome of Roberta's romance with Brian), and Roberta's militaristic conduct in the classroom provided a refreshing take on the To Sir, With Love standard--no affable Mr. Holland, she.

Unintentional humour, soapboxing, and slack direction mar Music of the Heart's second half. When a few of Roberta's graduates return to strut their stuff for the new batch of students, they are conveniently the children we met earlier all grown up. When the horror of urban life in the nineties hits Roberta, the sequence plays like one from a mouldy "ABC Afterschool Special". More gravely, this plot point and many others are not satisfactorily paid off. Take, for example, the near-expulsion of Roberta's oldest son, Nick (played Michael Angarano at 7 and Charlie Hofheimer at 17), his wild behaviour explicated in a cheesy, choppy slow motion playground-brawl sequence. One heart-to-heart with Roberta later and he's a cherubic goodie-goodie again. The primary grades are tough on a kid, especially in inner cities--how were his problems resolved outside the home? (Young Nick did, after all, almost murder another little boy.)

Craven's biggest blunder is to build audience anticipation for a rendez-vous between real-life master violinist Itzhak Perlman and the small wonders. After her funding is cut (and after Roberta, Principal Williams (Angela Bassett), a journalist (Jane Leeves), and a cadre of townsfolk have sat around like so many Muppets in Roberta's living room brainstorming harebrained schemes), Roberta plans a benefit concert, the venue for which hinges on Perlman's input. His name is also mentioned in virtually every scene leading up to the climax, yet his cameo amounts to one shot. Blink and you'll miss him. I wanted a moment in which the physically disabled Itzhak introduces himself to the girl who also can't stand up when she plays her instrument, even if it didn't actually happen--Pamela Gray's screenplay is, oddly, not formulaic enough.

You'll notice that up to this point I have neglected to discuss Wes "A Nightmare on Elm Street" Craven's filmmaking background. I didn't feel it necessary until moments ago with a punctual epiphany: timing is everything in horror movies and comedies--there's little in Music of the Heart, a light drama, that exercises Craven's well-honed editing skills, save for a few genuinely amusing takes from Josh Pais as Roberta's teaching rival, Dennis. That said, Craven just turned sixty, and I fully sympathize with his desire to leave fright flicks behind. After two excellent Scream pictures and a handful of other creepy classics, he's eligible for retirement from the genre, but he does seem a little lost without his sting notes.-Bill Chambers