‘The best time I’ve had in the last fifteen years was sitting at that piano with you…’
Writer-director Marc Lawrence is perhaps best known for penning the script to Miss Congeniality – a film in which Sanda Bullock plays an FBI agent who is tasked with infiltrating a beauty pageant with the intention of catching a terrorist. This is not a man interested in realism. This is abundantly clear in Music and Lyrics, a film that is not without its charms but is undoubtedly preposterous in terms of plotting…
Alex Fletcher (Hugh Grant) is a washed-up pop star whose best days are behind him and who has also suffered the indignity of watching his former bandmate achieve huge success. He’s a sort of Andrew Ridgeley figure. When pop superstar Cora Corman (Haley Bennett) asks Alex to write her a song (for some reason), it appears that this could be his way back to the top. The problem is that he’s shit at writing lyrics. Enter Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore), a former writer who Alex meets because she is covering for the woman that Alex pays to water his plants (for some reason). This song has to be written in a very strict timeline (for some reason). None of this makes any sense whatsoever so it’s best not to think about it too hard and just go along for the ride.
Now, this should result in a film that is absolute toss, and in some ways, Music and Lyrics is absolute toss. What elevates it is the two cast members at the heart of the film. Grant and Barrymore make for a wonderful double act, funny, warm and always self-aware enough to realise that this is a very silly film indeed. These two understood the assignment is what I’m trying to say here. We are in safe hands. It also helps that the music (from sadly departed Fountains of Wayne frontman Adam Schlesinger) is routinely excellent.
Music and Lyrics is a bad film but it’s a good romcom. A comfort film if ever I’ve seen one (and I’ve seen hundreds).
