I don't think the movie makes a judgment call on whether it's worth it. Neiman smiles at Fletcher there at the end - it's the final climax of the entire movie's arduous path to chasing greatness.

The call is each viewer's to make. I think most parents would be like the one in the movie - they'd be horrified to see the toll taken by a pursuit such as this one. But if you've ever met adults who had a gift as a child but it wasn't nurtured, many of them also express regret that they didn't get the right push in order to see whether or not they could make something of it.

And making it requires an enormous sacrifice. From the kid first and foremost, but the parents also give up a part of themselves and their relationship with the kid by putting them through this. Any endeavour - sports, art, music - it is suffering. Because human beings have become so good at everything that to really be at the top of something, it is going beyond your limits and reaching for the infinite.

And so the movie for me was a study on that whole question. I disagree that the dad's look is the final word on it - the movie leaves it ambiguous. For me, Neimans' smile says more than the dad's concern. The movie could have easily had Neiman looking defiantly back at his mentor, full of scorn and anger, showing him without saying anything that LOOK! I can do it! In spite of you, I can do it, but you've broken me and it wasn't worth it! But he smiles. He has the approval. He knows what it cost. And he finally understands what it takes to make it.

How much music did the kid listen to throughout the movie? THis WAS his dream. It wasn't his father's dream but his.