THE MALADY LINGERS ON : Marc Lawrence’s ‘Music and Lyrics’ [3/10] expanded review posted 2nd March
original (7") review
Dismayingly limp "romantic comedy" blatantly designed to cash-in on the St Valentine's Day market.* Miscast Hugh Grant (too old; can't sing) is a has-been 80s popstar implausibly landed with the chance to write a song for a Britney/Xtina/Shakira type (drollly under-played by fetching newcomer Haley Bennett.) Lyrics for said track are (even more implausibly) provided in instinctive style by Grant's "plant-waterer" - played as an uber-kooky, sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-Annie Hall by Drew Barrymore ("Cole Porter in panties," if you please.)
Minimal chemistry among the leads, even less inspiration/originality from script or direction; Campbell Scott ludicrously wasted in a single scene as Barrymore's slimy star-novelist ex; concert finale makes little sense. Picture bangs on and on about the importance of personal creativity and idiosyncratic self-expression, but itself has such a blandly characterless feel that, despite being entirely shot in New York, you'd swear it was yet another case of Vancouver/Toronto/Montreal doubling up. Bennett is a name to watch, and the script delivers perhaps half a dozen minor chuckles, evenly spaced over the 100+ minutes: otherwise, a dispiriting waste of time for all concerned, including the audience.
7th February, 2007
longer (12") version
Music and Lyrics is a dismayingly limp "romantic comedy" blatantly designed for the easy-to-please St Valentine's Day (or rather week) market. Couples – and singles – would be much better off renting the DVD of Tony Goldwyn's criminally underrated The Last Kiss from last year, perhaps the most accomplished recent example of the genre. Here we have a miscast Hugh Grant (too old; can't sing) as Alex, an 80s pop-star who languished in semi-obscurity while his band's singer Colin (Scott Porter) went on to George Michael-style solo success. In a plot-development seemingly inspired by the way popsters such as Betty Boo (who reportedly earned over $2m from Hear'Say's track 'Pure and Simple') have enjoyed greater success behind the scenes than in front of the microphone, Alex is (impausibly) implausibly handed with the chance to write a song for Cora Corman, a Britney/Xtina/Shakira type drolly under-played by fetching newcomer Haley Bennett.)
Alex has little difficulty come up with a tune, but were never his forte. Luckily, help is close at hand in the unlikely form of Sophie (Barrymore, revisiting Wedding Singer terrain), who apparently works as some kind of professional plant-waterer. Why Alex requires such a service, when his apartment is rather cramped by movieworld standards, is never made clear. Sophie, whose personality is a palimpsest of kooky, free-spirit quirks ("I have no filtering system"), is a kind of very poor man's Annie Hall – Diane Keaton is 'hommaged' via one man's-shirt-and-waistcoat combo – complete with a very hokey and convoluted back-story intended to explain her myriad neuroses. But she shows an instinctive knack for lyric-writing ("Cole Porter in panties!") that means before long she and Alex are, as they say, making 'sweet music' together…
If only. There's minimal chemistry among the leads – Grant's now-grizzled visage and Barrymore's doll-face makes the 14-year age gap impossible to ignore – and even less inspiration/originality from script or direction. The pair's first collaboration is entitled, appropriately enough, "Love Autopsy," and the picture never really threatens to flare into life. Clunky, contrived sub-sitcom stuff is the order of the day, with an especially limp "running" gag about stuff being piled on Alex's precious grand piano – writer-director Lawrence actually stoops so low as to recycle that bewhiskered gag whereby a character is surprised when flopping down onto a waterbed. Campbell Scott is ludicrously wasted in a single scene as Barrymore's slimy star-novelist ex, while the big Madison Square Garden concert-finale (in which Grant seems to be channelling Peter Skellern) makes even less sense than the similar jamboree which climaxes Dreamgirls.
It's not even possible to dismiss Music and Lyrics as fluffy nonsense. The picture bangs on and on about the importance of personal creativity and idiosyncratic self-expression, but quickly turns out to be a bland, by-the-numbers, multiplex-tailored affair – no less cynical in its pursuit of commercial gain than the supposedly shallow, money-grabbing Cora. It has such a blandly characterless feel that, despite being entirely shot in New York, you'd swear it was yet another case of a Canadian metropolis (Vancouver/Toronto/Montreal) doubling up. Bennett is clearly a name to watch – and Porter, though only fleetingly glimpsed during the opening titles, shows enough to suggest he may also go on to bigger things. And better ones, hopefully: Music and Lyrics intersperses perhaps half a dozen chuckle-worthy moments amid its hundred-minute cacophony of dispiritingly flat notes.
Neil Young
3rd March, 2007
MUSIC AND LYRICS : [3/10] : USA 2007 : Marc LAWRENCE : 104 mins (BBFC timing)
seen at Empire cinema, Gate complex, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK), 6th January 2007 – press show
* you'd be much better off staying in and renting the DVD of Tony Goldwyn's criminally underrated The Last Kiss, perhaps the most accomplished of Hollywood romantic comedies.