Begin Again
(2013)
(SPOILERS) What better way for the director of
the weightless Once to advance his
stalled career (I had no idea he made two films – three if you include a TV
movie – in between that and this, probably because neither did anyone else)
than to make an equally weightless movie, but this time with movie stars?
That’s pretty much Begin Again,
another music business tale, revolving around dreams, love and impossibly
good-natured calorie-free aspirational fluff. Mark Ruffalo tries his best, but
even he is unable to add any added value in the face of the deluge that is the
transformative power of music.
Once
failed to work its spell on me – it was okay, I guess – so maybe I’m just in
the minority of grouchy bastards. Its inconsequential affability, and the
accolades of how naturalistic it was from every quarter, grated rather than
soothed (Spielberg found it inspirational, which says a lot). Part of that
picture’s draw was the diegetic soundtrack; this wasn’t a musical where the
songs are set piece dance numbers. The performances are “live” and germane to
the surroundings, as a guy and a girl make music in a humdrum environment. The
“authenticity” that infused the film becomes the watchword of Begin Again, and seems to have won many
over. Yet director John Carney has written such a contrived, make-believe screenplay
that one wonders if any of this is supposed to be taken seriously.
Ruffalo’s Dan Mulligan is an honest
indie music exec (he co-founded his label) who has fallen on emotional and
career hard times. His wife Miriam (Catherine Keener, underused) has left him
and he barely sees his daughter Violet (Hailee Steinfield). Dan spends most of
his time in various states of inebriation, and then his partner Saul (Mos Def)
gives him the push. It’s in a subsequent state of intoxication that he
witnesses Gretta (Keira Knightley) reluctantly performing at an open mic night.
He thinks her perfectly ordinary song is absolute dynamite, and, when wooing
Saul to get on board fails, he opts to take the keeping-it-real approach,
setting up a mobile recording studio and getting tracks down at public locations
around New York. Yeah, Keira Knightley is what rock’n’roll is all about.
Along the way Gretta helps Dan to
reconnect with his daughter. Gretta is dealing with her own relationship grief,
having split up with boyfriend Dave Kohl (Maroon
5’s Adam Levine). Formerly they were a song-writing duo; when he found fame
she became a spare wheel (fetching coffee) until she found he was having an
affair. Gretta even has a loveable cheeky cheerful asexual sidekick who
provides a shoulder to cry on, played by (un)lovable twat James Corden.
One might point to the attempts to
make this more than just a saccharine sweet tale; there’s lots of swearing. Dan
drinks and smokes, and makes a dick of himself. He’s a rebel, man. Ruffalo does
pretty good drunk acting. Dan is annoyingly honourable. He hasn’t sold out in
the cheesiest of ways, and there’s no seeing the likeable Mos Def as the bad
guy. When it gets to the point that Dan is calling in favours to loyal artists (CeeLo Green) he got to where they are today, the sick bucket is constantly at hand.
“But the picture doesn’t go the
traditional love story route!” you might cry. Well, neither did Once, which makes Begin Again look more vauntingly cynical than anything meritorious.
Gretta’s album proves to be a roaring success, so all those calculatedly “legitimate”
performances really sold the authenticity (authenticity, Carney doesn’t seem to
realise, is something he has packed and sold and made every bit as glossy and
fake as the biz upon which he passes judgement).
I don’t know quite where Carney got
the idea of a musician who makes it big from writing a song that appears in a
movie. I mean, not a guy who saw a song in a movie he directed get nominated
and win Best Original Song Oscar. The Maroon
5 singer is utterly charmless, which he may be in real life, but I’m not
sure that’s the intention. Shouldn’t we be able to see what Gretta once saw in
him? Apparently Levine did the role for free, for the art. He should have paid
them for the privilege. Keira is fine with the singing part; she can carry a
note okay. But she’s so naturally reserved, the surrounding picture becomes ever
more cosy and unassuming.
Carney’s natural response to any
given soundtrack moment is a montage sequence, so his special brand of
semi-musical clearly isn’t breaking any new ground. Indeed, Begin Again once went under the
shockingly awful Can a Song Save Your
Life? There are copious scenes here that are every bit as insincere as that
title, from manufactured moments where Dan and Gretta wander Manhattan sharing
songs (you know, you can tell a lot about someone by what’s on their playlist)
to the fairy tale of Violet playing on Gretta’s album, to Dan’s sappy drunken
visualisation of invisible musicians with visible instruments beefing up
Gretta’s acoustic performance.
This is a wishy-washy, banal picture, too feeble
to be actively dislikeable, incapable of any of the uplifting emotions it wants
to imbue. Once at least was
authentically low budget. Begin Again
is merely authentically calculated. A more honest version of this film would
have Hugh Grant in the lead. And, while I surprise myself saying this, it would
probably have been more entertaining for him.
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