Director: John Carney
Writer: John Carney
Stars: Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, Adam Levine
Synopsis: A chance encounter between a disgraced music-business executive and a young singer-songwriter, new to Manhattan, turns into a promising collaboration between the two talents.
Melissa’s thoughts:
This is an enchantingly beautiful and vulnerable movie. It’s imperfect and definitely starts slow and leaves you uneasy with how weirdly naturalistic some of the conversations are. The pace isn’t gratifying, so it’s far from the La La Land magique but Keira Knightley does a brilliant job of playing such a nuanced character, who seems meek and docile but is actually remarkably self-aware and strong-willed. I love the childlike enthusiasm for music and the complete lack of pretentiousness towards all the pop guilty pleasures. It’s just beautiful and this headphone-splitter scene just did something for me – it reminded me of just how much music can transport you and light up an entire city. My university years were littered with music, as I traversed around the city to soundtracks that represented my friendships and new experiences. I am so pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this movie. It completely dismantled my weariness towards the weird casting and my stubborn attachment towards the actors’ type casts – by the end, I felt these characters were my own friends. Brilliant movie. So subtle, yet so nostalgic. Pure magic.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTRCxOE7Xzc
Headphone-splitter scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBbmdY6nXfw
Rating: 7/10
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