Aaron's Thoughts
The second act almost fully kills any momentum from the first. Yet, the opening and ending are so good that it almost doesn’t matter.
While I enjoyed this quite a bit more than ‘Flora and Son’, it isn’t on the level of Carney’s best work (‘Sing Street’ & ‘Once’). This got my thinking about what separates those films from his other work. I think it’s that his style (sentimental music movies) works better without movie stars than it does with. The more he scales up, the more he loses the core of what makes his films special. There is something about seeing a down on their luck (or up and coming) musician played by somebody who can truly embody that & brings a persona to the screen that can reflect that. Which is why Paul Rudd feels so unbelievable in ‘Power Ballad’. It almost should have been someone lesser known. The same way ‘Once’ would have been a lesser film had it been two stars we were familiar with.
It’s cool to see Carney get the opportunity to work with bigger stars (Ruffalo, Rudd Knightley, Gordon-Levitt) but I can’t help but shake how none of them lead to his best films. The whole thing is emblematic of where movies are now though. Because ‘Power Ballad’ probably never gets made if you don’t have a star like Paul Rudd playing the Rick Power character. Yet, in this casting decision that inevitably gets the film financed, you immediately lose the authenticity that is on the page with the script.
Here is to hoping we are moving towards a world where original ideas are enough to get a movie green lit.
