Film Review

Valentine’s flick keeps it fluffy

With the season of the original “Hallmark holiday” comes a barrage of sugary-sweet candies, chocolates and movies. Warner Brother’s “Music and Lyrics” falls neatly into the Valentine’s Day gift set as a cute movie without a great deal of depth or insight.

Starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore in a romantic comedy without a surprise ending, or many surprises at all for that matter, “Music and Lyrics” tastes sweet but is hardly satisfying.

Alex Fletcher (Hugh Grant) was a prominent member of a popular ’80s pop rock band called “Pop,” who now plays almost exclusively to middle-aged women at theme parks. Just as his career is careening toward demise, Fletcher is asked by current pop star Cora Corman (Haley Bennett) to write a new song for her album.

Cora is “Britney meets Christina” and one of the cleverest, albeit borderline offensive, aspects of the film is the over-the-top sexually charged character Bennett plays. The conflict of the film lies in the fact that Fletcher can only write melodies and not lyrics.

Enter Sophie (Barrymore), the woman that is filling in for the person Grant’s character has hired to water his plants. Turns out that Sophie is a natural lyricist and the two begin composing a hit for Cora’s new album and concert tour.

The plot is slowly stretched throughout the movie, which at its best is really just an excuse for Grant to zing entertaining one-liners every couple of minutes between his dancing scenes.

Conflicts arise awkwardly, making it seem as though the writers just needed to figure out a way to give Barrymore’s character a dramatic story Grant could react to with clever British wit.

Barrymore does a decent job with a limited character and Grant essentially plays an extension of his usual roles. Formulaic as it might be to give Grant witty one-liners and then have him dance around a bit, those elements are genuinely entertaining and keep the film moving along.

The romantic chemistry between Grant and Barrymore is all but non-existent, although as a writing team there is a more comfortable relationship as the two play off one another while working together.

In general, the characters in “Music and Lyrics” are rather flat, predictable and clichéd. The partial exception is Grant, who is good enough at the formula he has mastered to entertain in the midst of a rather mediocre film.

A few positive messages are partially embedded in the fluff of “Music and Lyrics.” There is a focus on working from inspiration and from one’s soul. When Fletcher is just trying to write hits, his music is awful, but once he is at a place of true emotion and not just on a quest for success, the quality of his music vastly improves.

There is also a focus on the crippling effect fear can have on a person’s dreams. Sophie, an aspiring writer, suffers under the shadow of a bad review from a former writing professor. As she begins to feel success in writing again she is empowered to return to her passion of writing — certainly not a profound thought, but a decently constructed concept.

Grant’s charisma redeems what would otherwise have been a disaster. “Music and Lyrics” is a fluffy film just in time for the candy Valentine holiday. More funny than not, it never ascends far beyond mediocre, but entertains nonetheless.

Oddly enough, in a movie about creating a lasting hit song, “Music and Lyrics” does exactly the opposite by becoming a film of familiar beats that lacks originality. It is a catchy beat, but certainly not a classic.

“Music and Lyrics” contains overt sexuality in the form of Cora the pop-star singer and a premarital encounter.

Rebecca Bostic is a regular contributor to The Catholic Sun. Comments are welcome. Send e-mail to letters@catholicsun.org.