Begin Again (2013)
Directed by John Carney
Gretta, a budding songwriter, finds herself alone after her boyfriend Dave ditches her. Her life gains purpose when Dan, a record label executive, notices her talent.
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What critics say influenced Begin Again
John Carney's latest tale of random hearts brought together by song may not have the rough-and-ready brilliance of Once (or a tune to match Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová's Oscar winning Falling Slowly ) but it does a surprisingly good job of making us believe in the slightly preposterous idea of KK recording an album on the streets of New York.
And yet, frustratingly, Begin Again—a spiritual successor to writer-director John Carney’s 2006 surprise hit, Once —occasionally works, and even merits its loop-back structure.
Yes, I realize it’s not the most original concept and that, on paper, John Carney’s latest film looks an awful lot like “Once,” the miraculous 2006 musical that put the Irish writer-director on the map.
There’s a parallel to be found with Carney’s repurposing of the “lovelorn city-dwellers bond while recording an album” premise from his weightlessly beguiling 2006 debut Once into a star-powered redemption yarn that lives for its next montage.
“Don’t compare it to Once, don’t compare it to Once, don’t compare it to Once, don’t compare it to-”…
Carney handles the ambiguous dynamic with care and creativity, avoiding “A Star Is Born” cliches while indulging in all the pleasures the familiar plot has to offer.
That brings us back to the club when Dan first hears Greta's music and things falls into a more linear "A Star is Born" type story with Dan wanting to produce a record and sign Greta onto his label so that he can get back into the good graces of his former partner Saul.
To answer the original title’s question: A song can bring Dan closer to his disaffected teen daughter (Hailee Steinfeld) and get her to stop dressing, as Dan puts it, like Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver.
Dan complains that his estranged 14-year-old daughter (Hailee Steinfeld) dresses like Jodie Foster in “Taxi Driver” (in fact, she does).
It’s a cute idea, a moment straight out of Walt Disney’s “Fantasia,” but it’s later explained away as part of Steve’s drunkenness.
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My favorite is a scene when Knightley and Ruffalo’s characters sit in Union Square, sharing a 1998-style headphone splitter and listening to Dooley Wilson’s classic “Casablanca” recording of “As Time Goes By” while they watch kids on BMX bikes doing stunts.
(Shades of Diane Keaton's "It Had to Be You" performance in Annie Hall.)
Your heart and feet won’t be able to resist what might be called—despite the assumed objections of author Nick Hornby—a “High Fidelity” for the iPod generation.
In one long sequence, the two leads, played by Mark Ruffalo and Keira Knightley, essentially dance through New York, “On the Town”-style, but the scene is “realistic” because they — and the audience — are hearing vintage Sinatra and Stevie Wonder tracks through the headphones the characters share.
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And then there’s Greta’s song ruined by Dave’s “sell out” version that feels snatched from Music and Lyrics (2007).
But think what would have happened if Carney had made "When Harry Met Sally…".