Movie Review: Power Ballad

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B

A pretty good dramedy. 

In this movie, a former boy band member who is struggling to create a solo career (Nick Jonas) spends a night jamming with a wedding band singer (Paul Rudd). The wedding band singer sings a chorus of a song that he wrote himself. Months later, the former boyband singer records that song and doesn't give any songwriting credit to the wedding singer. When the song becomes a massive hit, it causes the wedding singer to go on a downward spiral. 

With a movie about songwriting, naturally the songs are very important to if the movie works. While the songs here may not be as incredible as they are sometimes treated, they are quite good. They are very nice and pleasant to listen to and while the lyrics may lack much depth, they aren't bad. I can picture How to Write a Song Without You becoming a hit song and people singing along to it. Though I actually admit I prefer the other songs the former boy band singer wrote himself (and which didn't become hits). However, I often find my favorite songs on albums to be the album tracks, so this probably says more about me. The songs themselves are co-written by Gary Clark and the film's director (and co-writer) John Carney. The duo had previously written songs for Carney's previous film, Sing Street (2016). Incidentally, Clark had been a member of the 1980's pop band, Danny Wilson, and Danny Wilson is the name of the boyband singer here. 

The movie does a great job of exploring the two main male characters. There is quite a bit of depth to them, and Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas give truly great performances. Though these characters often do the wrong thing, we relate to them and understand what makes them do it. This keeps a strong emotional connection to these characters throughout the film. 

Unfortunately, the other characters are very underdeveloped. We know pretty much nothing about the other members of the wedding band or the wedding band singer's wife and daughter. This becomes a major problem as the film goes on. It becomes clear that much of the heart of this movie is supposed to come from the love he has for his daughter. Unfortunately, his daughter receives little screen time and in the screen time she has we barely learn anything about her. Because of this, the emotion that is supposed to comes from the scenes revolving around this relationship often simply isn't felt by the audience.   

For a dramedy, this movie also is never that funny. Some of the humor made me smile or chuckle but I never once really laughed, while watching this. 

While I won't give anything away, the ending is fantastic, hitting all the right emotional notes.