Hearts Beat Loud

Isn’t this how Phish got started?

(2018) Dramedy (Gunpowder & Sky) Nick Offerman, Kiersey Clemons, Toni Collette, Ted Danson, Sasha Lane, Blythe Danner, Quincy Dunn-Baker, Alex Reznik, Andrea Morales, Michael Abbott Jr., Harrison Chad, Robert Reed Murphy, Rafael Poueriet, McManus Woodend, Faith Logan. Directed by Brett Haley

 

Sometimes you just need a movie that’s going to make you feel good. More often than not you’ll reach for a favorite from childhood or even young adulthood, something as familiar and as comforting as an old blanket on a rainy day. Other times though you still want to try something new. If this is one of those times, have I got a movie for you.

Frank (Offerman) is the proprietor of Red Hook Records, the kind of store John Cusack would love. He resolutely and stubbornly sells only vinyl in the hipster-infested neighborhood of Red Hook in Brooklyn. When one such hipster scolds him for smoking in his own store, Frank replies acidly that if he’ll buy something, he’ll put out his coffin nail. The hipster counters by whipping out his phone and ordering his record on Amazon. Such brazen acts of douche-ness should be rewarded with a bazooka to the face.

His smart and pretty daughter Sam (Clemons) is heading to med school all the way across the country at UCLA in the fall. Frank is okay with this although the cost for sending his baby to college is staggering; there’s no way he could afford it on what he’s pulling in from the store so after 17 years he’s shuttering the business, despite the attempts by his sympathetic landlady (Collette) and kinda-sorta-maybe love interest to help him out.

One of Frank’s great joys is having a regular jam session with his daughter. Frank, who in his youth recorded an album, recaptures a little bit of his past glory in these sessions. On this night, a tune his daughter had been working on becomes a really good single. Dad wants to start a band with her and tour; she wants to go to med school. He takes the recording of the song and without her knowledge submits it to Spotify. It is added to a curated New Indie playlist. Suddenly things are starting to happen. You can guess where this is leading.

Haley, who directed last year’s excellent The Hero, surrounds these two with a pretty fair cast, including Danner as Frank’s mom who is showing signs of dementia and shoplifts from time to time, Danson as a pothead bartender and Lane as Sam’s girlfriend. There’s not a poor performance in the bunch and Offerman in particular is marvelous – I think this is his best work to date as a matter of fact. While it might seem to be a bit presumptuous for his daughter to tell Frank – often – that he needs to grow up, it’s also true that Frank seems to be spending his time in Just-Out-of-College Land.

There are a few bumps in the road; the relationship between Sam and Rose feels contrived and a bit too ridden with indie clichés to really hold up.. Also some of the roles (in particularly the mom and Rose) that are woefully underwritten and could have used some fleshing out. The soundtrack is really nice – you have to love a movie that gives a shout-out to Jason Molina and Songs: Ohia – and both Offerman and Clemons, who do their own singing and playing in the movie, are actually pretty good.

Some movies try too hard to be charming but this one pulls it off organically. Certainly you’re being manipulated a little bit but in the end if you walk out of the theater feeling good, that’s worth it’s weight in gold in these troubling times. Incidentally while the movie has opened up in major markets like New York and Los Angeles, it is rolling out nationwide and will be making it’s Orlando debut on June 22^nd. You should definitely check it out.

REASONS TO GO: The soundtrack is nifty and the original songs ain’t half-bad. This just might be Nick Offerman’s best work to date.
REASONS TO STAY: The relationship between Sam and Rose is a bit too indie clichéd.
FAMILY VALUES: There is profanity, some drug references and brief sexual content.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Offerman and Danson previously worked together in the second season of Fargo for F/X.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/9/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 92% positive reviews: Metacritic: 62/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Band-Aid
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: The Worker’s Cup

Advertisement

Adventureland

Jesse Eisenberg is taken aback when he discovers that Kristen Stewart thinks Robert Pattinson is dreamy.

(Miramax) Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Martin Starr, Paige Howard, Margarita Levieva, Wendie Malick. Directed by Greg Mottola

All of us at one time or another have a summer job that at the time we worked it sucked rocks. When we look back on that time in our lives, however, we are almost surprised when we realize our memories of it are fond indeed.

For James (Eisenberg), it’s the summer of 1987. He is getting ready to go to Columbia University, and plans on going to Europe over the summer. Unfortunately for James, his dad is downsized so the money earmarked for his trip has to go to other things. In fact, James is going to have to get himself a summer job.

Qualified to do absolutely nothing, not even fast food, James is beginning to get desperate until he lands a job working the games at Adventureland, the local amusement park. At first, it’s like a living hell; the park is falling apart, the games are rigged and the people there are rude and cruel.

Gradually, James begins to make connections; with Joel (Starr), the bespectacled literary geek who affects a pipe and may be even more picked on than James is; with Connell (Reynolds), the married but cool maintenance man who once played onstage with Lou Reed, at least according to Connell; and most importantly, with Em (Stewart), a fellow games employee who may be even more screwed up than James himself.

Em and James begin an awkward romance, the kind that is so fragile that the smallest stress could blow it away like a dandelion. In that kind of relationship, you tread carefully, each step carefully considered like you’re walking through a minefield which in essence, you are.

Mottola, who previously directed Superbad, steered clear of the raunch of his last movie and instead goes for a sweet-natured dramedy that has at its core a coming of age story but is less that than…well, I’m not sure I can describe it accurately, but suffice to say that the growth that takes place here isn’t the movie’s objective.

The studio, hoping to capitalize on Mottola’s Superbad, marketed it in a way that suggested that Adventureland was similar in tone, and it clearly is not. That may have cost the movie some box office receipts, unfortunately. That’s a shame because this is basically a pretty good film.

Eisenberg, who has been characterized (not unjustly) as a poor man’s Michael Cera, is less annoying than Cera here (which carried over to his next role in Zombieland). However, it is Kristen Stewart who is in my opinion the real reason to see this. While some might hate on her because of her Twilight connection, she is actually a pretty accomplished actress and shows it here with her portrayal of a girl who makes horrible decisions, is desperately miserable and yet remains unbelievably cool.

There are some pretty nice backing performances as well; Hader and Wiig, for example, as the managers of the park who are despised by their employees, and Levieva as the staff slut. It’s all set to a pretty nifty 80s soundtrack that owes more to the Replacements and their ilk than to the more standard Depeche Mode/Wang Chung school of new wave that most period films tend to employ.

Sadly, the movie falls through the cracks between raunchy sex comedy, bittersweet period piece and coming of age drama, with elements of all three. It’s definitely a movie worth checking out, but be warned in advanced that while there are some funny moments, it’s not a comedy per se. It’s the kind of film that can’t really be easily categorized except as high quality.

WHY RENT THIS: A bittersweet paean to summer jobs, uncertain futures and desperate romance.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Not raunchy enough to compete with modern comedies and too raunchy to appeal to family audiences.

FAMILY VALUES: There is some drug use, some sexuality and bad language. In other words, I’d probably think twice before letting the kids see this one.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The movie is based on Mottola’s real-life experiences at the Adventureland park in Long Island; the movie was shot at Kennywood outside of Pittsburgh, however since the real Adventureland has changed so much over the years.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There are some fake promos for the fictional Adventureland amusement park as well as an employee training video and drug policy overview.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

TOMORROW: Miracle at St. Anna