Raise Your Voice MPAA Rating: PG Entertainment: +2 Content: -1/2

In this musical drama, Terri Fletcher (Hilary Duff) is a 16-year-old small-town high schooler who loves music and singing. She gets accepted to an exclusive music camp in Los Angeles with the unknown help of her brother (Jason Ritter) who sends in a DVD showing her spontaneity. One night, Terri and her brother sneak out of the house, and she takes him to a concert for his birthday. On the way home, a drunk driver runs a red light, killing her brother. Terri blames herself for her brothers death and wonders if she will ever sing again. Her mother (Rita Wilson) and aunt (Rebecca De Mornay) work out a plan to get Terri to the music camp with her overprotective father (David Keith) thinking shes staying with her aunt. At camp, she makes new friends and begins to work through her grief. But when her father drives out to her aunts house, things get a little tricky.

On a refreshing note, Raise Your Voice offers an uplifting message, favorably portrays family and faith, and stars a heroine with a clean image. For a musical, the performances are not believable and the air-band techniques obvious. Deception is shown to be acceptable as long as you can sing a pretty song in the end, although Terri clearly is uncomfortable with lying. The overprotective father is shown little respect by his wife and the aunt. The films message is that you can make it if you do not give up and have someone watching over you. God is the implied caretaker when Terri is seen praying in church, but at other times her dead brother appears to be the one watching over her. This movie is intended to help young kids who have suffered loss, but the solution is not clear. Raise Your Voice is clean for a PG-rated film, but Preview does not wholeheartedly recommend it due to an unclear moral message and several instances of profanity.

Preview Reviewer: Alan Boyer
Distributor: New Line