By Dan Skip Allen

John Carney is a director I’ve come to love over the years. He’s not as prolific a director as some, but when he makes a movie, it’s usually something I enjoy. As evident by his latest film “Power Ballad”. Like most of his other films, this one has a trinket of music related content. This time around, he chose to go the straightforward route and have the main characters be directly involved in the music industry. His other movies involved music and people playing music in some form or another, but they weren’t directly about the music industry as this one was. That’s a nice touch about this film that sets it apart and makes it that much enjoyable. With the cast he has assembled and the songs throughout, this will inevitably be another hit for him, hopefully.

Rick Powers (Paul Rudd) is a singer in a wedding band, The Bride and Groove, but he gave up his career as the lead singer in a touring rock band when he met and married his wife, Rachel (Marcella Plunkett) and they had their daughter Aja (Beth Fallon). While playing a wedding at a castle he meets and befriends a boy band star Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas), not much of a stretch here, together they jam and take a half written song from Rudd’s characters past “How To Write A Song (Without You)” in which later on Jonas’s character steals to help launch his solo singing career. The song catches on with the public, but Rudd’s character takes offense to this and tries to make Jonas’s character accountable for his actions.

The Irish born film director John Carney broke out in 2007 with his little indie hit “Once” which won Best Original song at the Academy Awards the next year for “Falling Slowly” performed by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. Subsequently, he released “Sing Street” once again involving music about Irish school kids who form a band and perform at their school to impress a girl they like. There is a theme with Carney’s films: they revolve around music in some way. Specifically the love of music and how it ties people together. Even “Begin Again” and “Flora and Son” have that tie that binds us together, music. That’s the one thing other directors don’t have that makes him so unique.  The same goes for “Power Ballad.” It’s another film that uses music to get its message across.

Along with Carney, Gary Clark wrote and composed a lot of the songs performed in the film. Including the main hit song “How To Write A Song (Without You)”. All of the songs have a meaning to them and fit within the context of the film. They symbolize love in some way as a way to contextually Rudd’s character’s feelings for his wife and daughter. Jonas’s character is an ex-boyband singer, so he also uses the songs in the film to connect to a young female centric audience. He specifically says his songs have to get parents and daughters to like them so they can take their daughters to the concerts. It’s an interesting full circle moment. The music in this film definitely connects people. That’s the power of music. No pun intended. 

Besides Rudd and Jonas, there is a pretty good supporting cast, which some are callbacks to previous films from Carney. The first was Jack Raynor, who was in “Sing Street” as the older brother of the main character Connor (Ferda Walsh Peelo) and “Flora and Son”. He plays the music executive for the Jonas character. He tries to protect Jonas’ character despite him doing a shading thing. Havana Rose Liu has a small role as Jonas’s character’s girlfriend, but it’s a key role in the context of the movie. Marketta Plunkett and Beth Fallon, as the mother and daughter of Rudd’s character, play a huge role in his motivations to fight for what he believes in. He loves them and was inspired by them to continue to write and perform music with his cover band in Ireland. The band mates played by Peter MacDonald, Rory Keenan, and Paul Reid were good in their roles as well. They did a great job working opposite Rudd’s character. Together, they made a pretty good wedding cover band. 

An underlying theme of this film was how you have to protect your music at all costs. Make sure you have it licensed and copyright protected so this sort of thing can’t happen. With that being said, a collaboration can’t hurt to get a struggling artist out of their doldrums and give them a sense of rejuvenated energy they sorely needed. That’s what happened here. The two men needed each other to get to the point that they needed in their careers. All the great Singers and performers need good songs and sometimes good writers to come up with those songs for them. It’s definitely a collaborative process at times in the music industry. Carney and company show that very well here.

One of my favorite moments in this film is a huge call back to “Once” when Rudd’s character walks by a busker performing music in Dublin, Ireland, on the other side of a street. This character was played by Glen Hansard, the star of that film, and this was as meta as meta gets. Carney put this scene in as a way to show how his films are connected in a way. As a huge fan of “Once,” I got a kick out of this scene. Hopefully, viewers of the film will catch this moment, which was pretty cool from my perspective.

“Power Ballad” is a film that will have you laughing at times, and it’ll have you getting quite emotional at times. One scene specifically had me tearing up, but I won’t say what that is. I’ll let the audience experience that hopefully for themselves. Carney knows how to pull emotional performances from his actors, even one like Jonas, who isn’t an actor. Rudd does his usual schtick here. He has the average guy routine down pat. His sense of humor adds to every role he has. Him and Jonas worked well together despite the fact that Jonas came across as an amateur at times on screen. The music scenes were very well done. A dream sequence translationing was very well edited, and it worked very well in context to the story of the film. The end sequences with three scenes all being edited together was perfect to show where the movie started and how it came full circle to its inevitable conclusion. Carney has done it again in my book. He’s made another film using music at its core to great use. I had a fantastic time watching these characters and listening to the music throughout the film.

4 stars