Danny Collins (2015)
Directed by Dan Fogelman
An ageing hard-living 1970s rock star decides to change his life when he discovers a 40-year-old undelivered letter written to him by John Lennon.
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Among them, as a star-struck young hotel desk clerk, is "Whiplash" alum Melissa Benoist, who has a warming smile that's a perfect generational bookend to Bening's.
It’s there that he finds friendship with a valet (Josh Peck, “Red Dawn”) and a desk clerk (Melissa Benoist, “Whiplash”) and an unlikely romance with a whip-smart hotel manager (Annette Bening).
Even the bit parts go to the girl from “Whiplash” (Melissa Benoist), who steals scenes as a hotel worker, and Nick Offerman, who opens the movie as a reporter.
The cast is full of sharp little turns by Melissa Benoist — the girlfriend in “Whiplash” and a future Supergirl — and Josh Peck and Katarina Cas, the latter playing Danny’s bubblehead user of a fiancée.
The first follows Danny’s stay at a Hilton in New Jersey, where he plays matchmaker for a valet attendant and front desk clerk (Whiplash’s Melissa Benoist) and flirts with and ultimately befriends hotel manager Mary (Annette Bening).
Danny's exuberant appreciation for valet boy Nicky (Josh Peck, "The Wackness") turns into matchmaking when he meets college aged reception clerk Jamie (Melissa Benoist, TV's 'Glee,' "Whiplash"), but it's hotel manager Mary Sinclair (Annette Bening, "The Kids Are All Right") who gets him thinking about more age appropriate romance for himself.
Bening is as charismatic here as she’s ever been – delivering a performance that hearkens back to her memorable turn in Rob Reiner’s “The American President” – while the perpetually underrated Cannavale matches Pacino blow for blow.