Creating great art that portrays great art is always a challenge. Generally speaking, if a filmmaker was capable of writing a hit song, they would be doing that rather than making a movie about it.
The first time Paul Rudd plays “How to Write a Song Without You,” the creative authorship of this song being the central conflict of “Power Ballad,” I shrugged. Even as I struggled to distinguish this one song from all the others that were dismissed in the film as too dull for mass appeal, I chose to believe all of the characters onscreen, suspend my disbelief and accept that in the universe of “Power Ballad,” this was an undeniable megahit on par with The Beatles’ best.
The second time the song plays, my suspension of disbelief began to waver as every character on screen fell over themselves to celebrate this hapless ditty as the next big thing.
By the tenth or so time the song plays, its one-time harmless appeal becomes malignant, with each repetition sharpening its dullness into a razorlike mediocrity, offensive in its blandness and in the filmmaker’s desperation to convince us it’s a masterpiece. “Power Ballad” feels less like a movie than a social experiment to see if a hit song can be willed into existence through sheer repetition. Sadly, the song and the movie strives for greatness but achieves only a blasé madness.
Rick Power (Rudd) was once an up-and-coming musician but, after meeting his wife and having a daughter, he gave up his rock star aspirations in favor of humble work in a wedding band in Ireland. Twenty years on, he performs at a wedding in which Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas), a onetime boy band idol trying to breakthrough as a solo artist, attends as a guest.
After playing a song together and finding common ground in a desire to be taken more seriously as artists, Rick and Danny spend the night together playing music and recording songs. Late into their jam session, Rick strums on a guitar and sings what will become “How to Write a Song Without You,” a modest ballad he has been tinkering with for years.
They end the night on good terms, with Danny gifting Rick one of his guitars. Six months later, while walking through a mall, Rick stops dead in his tracks. Over the mall speakers, he hears a familiar song and, after some quick research, discovers that Danny has made “How to Write a Song Without You” into a pop smash, taking sole credit for the work that finally boosts his struggling solo career. Rick sets out to get his deserved recognition for his art: from his family, his friends and ultimately from Danny himself.
Director John Carney has explored these dramatic worlds of idealistic, pure-hearted musicians, full of sappy sad boys glorifying the power of music, in “Once,” “Begin Again” and “Sing Street.” Given the narrative preoccupation with the theme of purity in music, it’s a little jarring that so many of the songs in the film are obviously Rudd and Jonas lip-syncing to heavily produced vocals.
The usually charming Rudd and Jonas, who plays a fictionalized version of himself, are not the problem with this movie, though they are desperately in need of more to do. The plot is whisper thin, with less thought given to dramatic scene-building than how often to play the same song over and over and over. Each repetition does the song, and the film, a disservice by shining a light on just how shallow and stale the characters and their music truly are.
The measuring stick for “Power Ballad” is simple: if you find yourself enjoying the sappy, cloying “How to Make a Song Without You,” you’re in luck, as the movie seems to exist solely to play this song as much as possible. But if, like me, you find the song nauseating, watching “Power Ballad” will result only in repetitive torment.
A version of this review was posted at Curt On The Movies.
“Power Ballad” Rated R for language throughout and some drug use. Running Time: 1 hour and 38 minutes. Directed by John Carney. Written by John Carney and Peter McDonald. Starring Paul Rudd, Nick Jonas, Peter McDonald, Marcella Plunkett, Havana Rose Liu and Jack Reynor. Genres: Comedy, Drama, Music.
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