The Music Never Stopped

The Music Never Stopped is a 2011 American drama film directed by Jim Kohlberg, who makes his directorial debut from a script by Gwyn Lurie and Gary Marks.
It premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, and was given a limited release in the US on March 18, 2011.
Plot.
Based on Oliver Sacks' essay "The Last Hippie", the film tells the father-son relationship between Henry Sawyer (J.K. Simmons) and his son, Gabriel (Lou Taylor Pucci), who suffers from anterograde amnesia as the result of a brain tumor. Henry, with his son unable to shed light on their strained relationship, must connect with him through music.
Release.
Critical response.
The film currently holds a 67% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 49 reviews. Ty Burr of "The Boston Globe" remarked the film was "one to remember", also calling it "sentimental, yet so honest and eccentric that it rises above schmaltz". Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club compared the film's story to "The King's Speech", giving praise to J.K. Simmons and Lou Taylor Pucci and calling the film a "powerful, even shattering look at music's power to unite where it once divided".