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Review #392 of 365
Movie Review of Music and Lyrics (2006) [PG-13] 96 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $12.50
Where Viewed: Colorado Cinemas Cherry Creek 8, Denver, CO
Special Denver Film Society Advance Screening
When 1st Seen: 8 February 2007
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer
DVD Release Date: unscheduled
Review Dedicated to: AET
Directed by: Marc Lawrence (Two Weeks Notice)
Written by: Marc Lawrence (Miss Congeniality)
Featured Cast (Where You Might Remember Him/Her From):
Hugh Grant (American Dreamz) • Scott Porter ("Friday Night Lights") • Brad Garrett ("Everybody Loves Raymond") • Drew Barrymore (Fever Pitch) • Haley Bennett (debut) • Kristen Johnston (Strangers with Candy) • Campbell Scott (The Exorcism of Emily Rose)
Soundtrack: Download now from 
Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word or less review of this film]
Ironically, contrary to the blogsphere, Music and Lyrics is not a chick flick directed at the current teen market such as Material Girls, rather it is for all the teenagers of the 1980s who are now soundly into their 40s. Ironic because the film only works well for those people precisely because they have aged slowly and now finally feel 30 (noting, of course, all the recent publicity about how 40 is the new 30 etc.). The film probably would not work otherwise as people tend to hit the "sentimental for their teen years" around 30 not 40. So, rather than the film arriving 10 years too late, it's right on time and popping into our hearts. Yes, I'm in this category, and, yes, I left whistling the band Pop's songs—getting a wink from more than one person in the lobby who felt as I did. This is at once both a retrospective and an introspection for those of us in this age category. It allows us to take stock of our lives and begin to wonder if things went the way we'd always dreamed—if not, what can we do, with what always seems like so little time left, to get that spark back and get on the right track.
"…for those of us 40-somethings who lived through the past 25 years in utter denial…the film is a self-help book wrapped up in catchy pop music and lyrics."
This is possible through the eyes of aged former 80s pop star, Alex Fletcher (Hugh Grant) and his mercurial relationship with his plant lady, the 15 year younger, Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore). As Chris Riley (Brad Garrett) works tirelessly to book the has-been superstar at Knott's Berry Farm and high school reunions to support his lifestyle after the demise of his Pop band in the early 90s—his cohort Colin Thompson (Scott Porter) went, of course, solo and became an international sensation. Out of the blue, current teen sensation and megastar, Cora (Haley Bennett) wants to give Alex three days to write a new duet for them to sing called "Falling Back into Love" for her new album and tour. The song title is the only stipulation as it was the title of the book that helped her recover from a break-up with her boyfriend of 2 months. This could be a huge break and a reboot for Alex's career, but he's not written lyrics in over a decade. During a session with a professional lyricist, the woman subbing as his plant caretaker, Sophie Fisher (Barrymore) spouts off some lyrics when he's writing at this piano, and Alex's entire world subsequently is turned upside down. He needs Sophie to write with him, but Sophie has some baggage of her own. She's just fallen on hard times created by her nasty ex-lover, an English professor who used her, dumped her for his wife and then turned her into the main character of his new book that tells of a young woman who seduces an English professor strictly so she can use his connections to get her own book published. So, Sophie wants little to do with writing or writers. She finally concedes to helping Alex write for Cora's song, and the ensuing days together and relationship that forms between them ends up forcing both of them into an important self-revelatory phase. This does not happen without some harsh words being said between them, however.
Hugh Grant and Haley Bennett perform Cora's new hit song(Click Still Photo to Purchase)
The cast is wonderfully appropriate with Kristen Johnston playing Sophie's Alex-obsessed older sister with a weight loss clinic and a semi-perfect marriage with kids, Brad Garret as Alex's divorced but looking manager, and the zesty, vivacious Haley Bennett as current pop-sensation Cora rounding out the major players in the story. Hugh Grant, again, is perfectly cast as the sort of smug Brit import. This time, however, his character has some unusually great qualities and dimensions that most people won't expect or see coming. Honestly, after all the Hugh Grant drama in real life, a lot of people grew just weary of him in general. Well, he's absolutely perfectly fit for this role, and he has great fun with it. He seems genuine and real. Not many guys could have pulled this role off at 46ish years old. Drew Barrymore was her usual self of late--sort of the bashful but with gumption.
Drew Barrymore as Sophie Fisher(Click Still Photo to Purchase)
Her own turning point in the role was captured with a maturity most of us pray we can achieve rather then spending another decade sulking. We 40-year olds have been given a free decade, now it's time to pull out of the funk and make some things happen. That really is the main theme of the story. Setting the old baggage behind and launching off into the new wild blue yonder. We are a reminiscent generation that longs for the pop candy of the go-go 80s. We were beaten down in the 90s and literally deflated in the first half of the 90s as we saw the great world we'd been promised literally disappear as the political climate pulled the rug right out from under us. We grew up under the specter of constant annihilation from foreign enemies only to then see the iron curtain disappear. We thought the world was finally reaching global harmony, only to have the dinosaur generations of those 20 years older than we were, plummet our world back into the dark ages with their high-faluting rhetoric and war mongering ways.
Hugh Grant and Scott Porter as Alex Fletcher and Colin Thompson , stars of the faux 80s band Pop(Click Still Photo to Purchase)
Writer / Director Marc Lawrence seems to get this, and he does a brilliant job of casting what we 40 somethings really need to do to reclaim our lost years of disillusionment. For this and many other great reasons—great 80s-eque pop music, a wonderful collision with the older and newer styles of music, a hopeful and helpful coaching on how to get out of the funk and into our future, Music and Lyrics was a great time. Definitely, it's obvious how younger and older people than this niche audience might not comprehend this film, at all. But, for those of us 40-somethings who lived through the past 25 years in utter denial of what was going on and feeling powerless to do anything but hide behind the jobs we took to satisfy our parents and the lives we lived to satisfy the marketers, the film is a self-help book wrapped up in catchy pop music and lyrics.
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Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word review of this film]
Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word review of this film]
Other Projects Featuring Music and Lyrics (2007)
Cast Members
Hugh Grant
• Scott Porter • Brad GarrettDrew Barrymore
• Haley Bennett • Kristen JohnstonCampbell Scott
Writer / Director
Marc Lawrence
| DVD | VHS | |
Music and Lyrics (2007) Review-lite [150-word cap]
Contrary to the blogsphere, Music and Lyrics isn't a chick-flick for teens, rather it's for the teenagers of the 1980s who are now soundly into their 40s. At once both a retrospective and an introspection, it stars Hugh Grant as the former 80s pop star, Alex Fletcher and Drew Barrymore as his mercurial 15-year younger, unexpected co-lyricist, Sophie Fisher. An opportunity to write and perform a new pop ballad with teen queen of the day, Cora (Haley Bennett), turns the fortunes of both around. Writer / Director Marc Lawrence delivers, for those of us 40-somethings who lived the past 25 years in utter denial of what was going on and feeling powerless to do anything but hide behind the jobs we took to placate our parents and the lives we lived to satisfy the marketers, a film that is a self-help book wrapped up in catchy pop music and lyrics
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