The Guitar: Review By Mushy

The Guitar is one of those movies that creeps up on you. As a viewer this story will play out as one that we have seen before. Melody (Saffrow Burrows) is given 2 months to live, so she decides to live the life that she's always wanted. She gets a bunch of credit cards, moves up to a spacious loft, eats all the foods she's always desired, she follows her bliss and this eventually leads to her picking up a guitar and playing it. During all of this she starts having trysts with a man and a woman, all of which do nothing but underscore her righteously, hedonistic (and deserved) lifestyle. Things change when Melody suddenly runs out of cash. Now, it is here that this movie could take any number of turns, but it decides to use this moment to transcend itself. Rather than have some easy storybook ending, the film enters into a discussion about the lives we lead. At the same time, the ultimate conclusion of this film is no less of a fairy tale.

Ultimately this movie posits the question... if you could live the life you wanted to lead without concerns or responsibilities breathing down your neck, what kind of life would it be? How much would you be enriched? How healthy might you be? Just how great could you become?

Mixing music into the equation, The Guitar is one of those movies that actually is uplifting and real while also teaching us a lesson. While at times I felt I knew where this movie was going, eventually I realized, that like music itself, this film was simply reveling in all of its layers.