Pleasant but insubstantial.

Rating: 5/10 (24 November 2014)

I was late to the party on this one. Begin Again had a 'blink and you'll miss it' release and I did. It's not hard to see why: though it is warmly entertaining, it is, ultimately, flimsy and unmemorable.
Written and directed by John Carney, whose biggest hit to date remains 2006's Once, Begin Again shares a similar theme: a couple making music and discovering themselves.
Gretta (Keira Knightley) accompanies her musician boyfriend Dave (Adam Levine) to New York when he signs a deal with a major record deal. But while the world glows for him, Gretta soon finds herself the first casualty of his new-found fame and wandering Manhattan alone, but for the company of old friend and busker, Steve (James Cordon). By chance, she is thrown together with disgraced record label executive Dan (Mark Ruffalo) and, astounded by her raw talent, he signs her up for a quirky musical collaboration around New York City.
And therein lies my biggest issue with Begin Again: Dan is astounded by Gretta's talent, I wasn't. Yes, it is pleasant, her singing is easy on the ear and her lyrics are several ranks higher than the Cheeky Girls, but she's no Leonard Cohen.
Like Gretta's musical output, Begin Again is twee, easy and simple, it is moving wallpaper that doesn't cause any offence. We've seen it before, we've enjoyed it more and last time around, in Once, Carney didn't dilute it. It strikes me that Carney has poured this one out to satisfy the teeny audiences who were told they should have loved Once but just didn't get it.
Knightly is fine, Ruffalo is as good as ever, Cordon is slightly less over the top than usual. The plot is simple, the father/daughter subplot is obvious, everything is laid out very carefully for the audiences that need life explained fully for them to understand. Begin Again is all just a little bit plinky plonk, it is obvious and idealistic and, particularly in the instance of the family dancing sequence, plain embarrassing.
I love the idea of a group of musicians recording an album in the open around New York but there has to be a far better way of presenting it to the world.
Pleasant but insubstantial. Begin Again? Please don't.
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