dvd of the week
The plot of John Carney’s delightful musical Begin Again is slight, using a few of the clichés of the let’s-put-on-a-show! genre and focusing on a rather simple redemption narrative in order to string together a bunch of beautifully directed musical performances. Carney’s last major feature, the magical Oscar-winning Once, was emotionally much more powerful, possibly because it snuck up on you, acted as it was by utter unknowns. Begin Again has Mark Ruffalo as a down-and-out record producer who needs a new act, Keira Knightley as that act who is suffering a broken art, Adam Levine as the cause of that break, Catherine Keener as the record producer’s wife and Hailee Steinfeld as their daughter. They are all huge stars and a bit distracting at first. Can Knightley sing? Can Levine, an actual rock star, act? Is Ruffalo going to do that disheveled loser thing for the whole movie? Yes, yes and yes. Everyone is fantastic, but by the end, the film belongs to Knightley’s Greta, who refuses to compromise, in music and in love.
