One of the most out-of-context images served up by this hot spring’s movie releases is of Paul Rudd, the Jewish Hollywood star whose talent for whimsical comedy has been eclipsed by his antics as Marvel’s Antman, stepping out of a rundown semi-detached house one bleak morning.
The modest home could be in any suburb in the British Isles, though is actually in Crumlin, a Dublin backwater whose oddly self-deprecating name makes Nowheresville sound like the centre of the universe.
A late arrival to the movie might mistake Once and Sing Street director John Carney’s latest musicomedy for Mike Leigh-style social realism. But no. Here that flavour is warming without being over-egged while also providing this star-powered comedy much of its charm.
The house is home to Rudd’s former American rock singer Rick who lives there with his former groupie girlfriend Rachel (Marcella Plunkett) and their 15-year-old daughter Aja (pronounced Asia and played with pitch perfect understatement by Beth Fallon).
Rick’s modestly paid job is fronting a wedding band populated by greying rockers called – with a standard of punning usually only used by high street hairdressers – Bride and Groove.
The group plays soft rock crowd-pleasers but Rick likes to throw in a tune of his own every now and then, much to the dislike of the band’s drummer manager Binzer, played with soulless pragmatism by Rory Keenan.
“We’re human jukeboxes”, he reminds his lead singer who still dreams that his songs will one day make it big.
During a wedding one of the guests is boy band star Danny (Nick Jonas who channels his pop experience as one of the Jonas Brothers). During the gig, Danny duets with Rick whose reluctance is overcome by admiration for the young’s star’s singing talent. Back at Danny’s absurdly opulent hotel room the two get wasted and jam the night away, swapping tunes and songwriting ideas including one that Rick “has been toying with for years.”
The scene in which Rick is in a mall buying football boots for his daughter as the number floats through the sterile shopping centre like a breath of fresh plagiarism is beautifully judged by director Carney. It is hard to ignore that the film’s plot chimes with the ongoing dispute in which Irish songwriter Ray Heffernan claims rights over the massive Robin Williams hit Angels.
The wry and witty script co-written by Carney and Peter McDonald, who co-stars as Rick’s rough diamond mate and the wedding band’s wild lead guitarist, is itself a thing of beauty. Take when Rick’s daughter Aja tells her dad that the days in which men use women to write songs about themselves are over. Girls are not looking for love, she tells him. What are they looking for, asks Rick as lost as a puppy on the underground. Revenge, she tells him.
Although Carney is uninterested in making a revenge fantasy the reckoning here is well worth waiting for. More satisfying still is that deep inside Rudd’s needy, failed rockstar is a wisdom that comes from spending a life doing the thing you love which not even being screwed over by a showbiz giant can kill. The moral is a load of balls, of course, but the film makes you believe it just long enough to leave feeling good.
Power Ballad
Cert 15
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