The Music in Me on AllMovie

Uplifting in spite of itself (consistently - and doggedly - refusing to give into cloying or sentimentalist inclinations), Nigel Traill's hour-long documentary The Music in Me chronicles the activity of The Merry Makers, a 28-year-old nonprofit dance group in suburban Sydney, Australia, that is uniquely designed for children and adults with developmental disabilities. From Down's Syndrome to cerebral palsy to a genetic condition known as Fragile X, manifold and diverse are the conditions on display here. Traill documents the rote, systematic showbusiness preparations as the Makers attend Saturday song-and-dance rehearsals with the assistance of over a dozen volunteers; the film concludes with a lavish concert by the ensemble. In between, Traill uses archival footage to document the origins of the ensemble (at the hands of Rosemary Marriott, who in the late 70s conceived the central idea) and interpolates interviews with the many parents of the members, reflecting candidly (with heartfelt resonance) on the initial experience of discovering that their children had such disorders - and the subsequent joy upon learning the full extent of their children's musical abilities through the said ensemble.