All About the Music

At last, I saw Begin Again last night, on a Delta flight, and OMG was it good.

Set in New York City and directed by John Carney (Once), the film is one of those quite-perfect intersections between music and, well...film, one that tells the story of a down-on-his-luck and disillusioned A&R man (Mark Ruffalo) who finds a diamond in the rough in a heartbroken singer-songwriter from London (Keira Knightley) who doesn’t even realize what a talent she is.

Dan is one those music men who got started in the business, in the mid-’90s, ’cause of the music, man. Along the way, though, he got away from himself. He lost like, his conviction to fight for the art. Since art and business, after all, don’t mix very well, Dan has had to compromise his beliefs with every business decision he and his partner have had to make to survive, which has led him to drink too much, to estrange himself from his wife (Catherine Keener) and teenaged daughter (Hailee Steinfeld), and to hate himself more just a tad.

Meanwhile, Gretta – a gifted songwriter in her own right – has arrived in the city basically to be someone’s girlfriend. That someone, Dave, is a dude who’s caught a lucky break after having one of his songs featured in a movie and who’s been put on the fast track to superstardom and, thus, has turned into a douche.

Naturally, the powers that be thought of Adam Levine for the role, to play off the (mis)conceptions that surround him in real life. Apropos of SoFine, he delivers a surprisingly nuanced, lived-in performance as an up-and-comer who gives into the temptations of his newfound fame – guess he really can do it all! – but, truly, the film belongs to Ruffalo and Knightley and to the musical journey their characters take. And, of course, to the beautiful music that New Radicals frontman Gregg Alexander, Danielle Brisebois, Nick Lashley, Rick Nowels, and Nick Southwood worked on for it with Carney and Once Oscar winner Glen Hansard.

Dan and Gretta are, I don’t want to say that they are lost...but they are certainly adrift when they first meet (in a drunken stupor, he spots her at an open mic that she reluctantly takes part in at an East Village bar; rising star James Corden plays her fellow-Brit-in-NYC-friend). She’s just been unceremoniously dumped by someone with whom she spent five years of her life (supporting his dreams...their dreams), and he has become fed up with it all and is thisclose to checking out when he hears her song.

Before Begin Again was called Begin Again, it was called Can a Song Save Your Life?

The answer, as you should learn (watch the movie! rent it ASAP! get on a plane that is playing it now – if you can!), is a resounding and worthy yes.

Certainly, Begin Again is defiantly uncynical and unbelievably earnest, but, to me, that’s what makes it so gosh darned enjoyable. If this film were a person right now, it would be Taylor Swift: a pop act with an indie vibe (hey, Ms. Swift writes her own stuff, and that is pretty indie these days) that’s quite country still in its tireless quest for authenticity of feeling.

And there ain’t nothing wrong with that, don’t you know, don’t you know.

My Rating ****

Photo: LongLiveCinema.com.