Hilarious! I don’t know whether ‘Music and Lyrics’ really is a laff riot or if it is just such a fun and welcome break from the awful January February offerings.
But I’m betting it will hold up next summer and next year too.
Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore are surely two of the most naturally amusing and charming folks in film now. It’ a wonder they haven’t worked together before now but they did this and it seems so right.
Both stars are masters of self-deprecating humor. They’re not afraid to look silly – remember Drew in Never Been Kissed? Dragging herself around, sure she’s a loser?
And Hugh in just about all his comedies? A self-avowed hangdog depressive with too much imagination?
But what a sport he is in this one!
Playing Alex Fletcher, former keyboardists for an 80’s video hair band called Pop, he spends much of the film popping his hip out, arms akimbo, with a ‘sexy’ look on his face, doing the crazy over-choreographed dances of the era. It is frankly sidesplitting. Honestly, those were bad looks back then, bad dances and bad songs. And Hugh makes them even worse somehow, therefore, funnier.
We’re treated to Pop’s rock video, done obviously in the pioneering days of the art form, by people like Julian Temple, and it is stupendously over acted and shamefully horrible. We used to think they were the bee’s knees!
Drew is Sophie, an artistic soul content to water plants as she accepts the fact that she is no longer 25, and recuperating from a bruising romance with a college professor. She wants a little peace and quiet.
A Shakira / Madonna-esque pop star named Cora (Haley Bennett) offers Fletcher the chance to write her next hit, based on his twenty years ago songwriting prowess, but he just has a few days to do it. He’s shocked and he’s blocked. Sophie comes into his apartment to water the plants, accidentally sings some clever lyrics and he latches onto her to finish writing the song with him. She resists because she’s just tired of men.
Fletcher performs at various fairs and amusement parks for his now menopausal fans, again based on his twenty years ago fame, while scrambling to write the potentially career reviving song. His career had better come back to life soon – Knott’s Berry Farm just canceled his big retro gig.
The pace is quick and the laughs come often. ‘Music and Lyrics’ is a terrific blend of two charming leads in an imaginative script that should appeal to audiences who were around in the 80’s – or not. Fabulous fun!
Especially fun is the final sequence of the Pop rock video, done in the style of Pop-Up video, which raises the spectre of something 80’s enthusiasts may not want to think about – hip replacement from too much 80’s style dancing!
The film has abundant good will and reminds us how terrific its stars are. Both have been through the sex symbol period, now they may have ironic distance from it and don’t mind poking a little fun at it.
Music and Lyrics
Opens Valentine’s Day in the USA, Wed Feb. 14th. MPAA: Rated PG-13 for some sexual content.
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