3.5 stars (out of 5)
Irish writer/director John Carney, of the beloved Once, returns to the music-filled character drama with this New-York-set charmer although, like Once, this is NOT an actual movie musical, like some out there seem to wrongly think.
Dan Mulligan (Mark Ruffalo) is a washed-out, boozed-up mess of a man who’s having a really bad day: he’s kicked out of the record label he co-founded with old friend Saul (Mos Def seemingly under a pseudonym), he upsets his increasingly alienated teen daughter Violet (Hailee Steinfeld) and his ex Miriam (Catherine Keener), and he gets punched by a bartender. However, when he, by sheer chance, hears Gretta (Keira Knightley really singing) perform one of her own songs in an open-mic club (she’s forced into it by muso pal Steve, played by James Corden), Dan senses that he’s spotted a hit, and things begin to change. Gretta’s just about to return to the UK after her own relationship drama, and the plot gets a little bogged down as we flash back over that before we come back to watch as Dan fights to get her songs recorded the way she wants them in an ever-changing industry. And his eventual solution: perform each track somewhere live in New York, with much ambient noise, strangers recruited as backing vocalists, subway trains, chasing cops and so on.
Sure, this is indeed complete fantasy, but it’s most enjoyable anyway, with lovely playing by Keira, Mark (who does rumpled and drunk awfully well), Corden and, in a few scenes, Cee Lo Green as Dan’s bigtime pal and chronic hugger ‘Troublegum’. There are also tantalising similarities to Once’s will-they-or-won’t-they? storyline, and the addition of summertime-in-NY clichés and a soundtrack that includes Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder and (spoilers – or do you need to look it up on Wikipedia?) Dooley Wilson in between the original tunes doesn’t hurt either.
I Wake Up Screening 