PIANO FORTE

By RICHARD CORLISS

He is mad--schizophrenic, to be exact--but it's a nice mad, not angry or morose. In a spray of wildly allusive wordplay, David Helfgott natters compulsively, cheerfully, to himself. Popular cinema loves head cases, especially when their condition is as endearing as David's. Because he was once a pianist of great promise, and because his is a true story, Helfgott is an ideal vessel for the awe and pity of the middle-class moviegoer in search of an elevating experience. Shine, an entertaining, way-too-canny Australian film written by Jan Sardi and directed by Scott Hicks, encourages a kind of emotional slumming--upward.

David (played from youth successively, and quite engagingly, by Alex Rafalowicz, Noah Taylor and Geoffrey Rush) might have been a sweet-souled musical prodigy. But he had a brutal stage father (Armin Mueller-Stahl), a Jewish communist who was also a chronic German patriarch. "Music is your friend," says Papa in his Fuhrer-knows-best tone. "Everything else will let you down." David also has the classical pianist's romantic soul: part Liszt, part Liberace. Just as he embraces fame, he collapses into his mind's awful abyss.

All this is fine, if a little too stridently observed--see David sweat in slow motion. But then he finds his true love (Lynn Redgrave!) and Shine takes a dive into soapsuds. The film ceases to be a cogent study of the disease of genius and devolves into two lesser creatures: an ordinary weepie and an Oscar contender. Shine is not an instrumental but a choral work--a trusty hymn to the human spirit. You will be moved, ladies and gentlemen. Perhaps that is all you, and the Academy, need to know.

--By Richard Corliss