Great Companion Piece to "Once"!

Rating: 8/10 (29 July 2015)

It was pure coincidence recently, when I got out my DVD of "Once" and made my annual viewing, that I realized this movie was on Showtime- director John Carney's follow-up to that movie (other than "Zonad"-OMG- had NO idea he also did that crazy film??!). And like it's predecessor, it's a winner!
Also like "Once", the music is the real star of the show. Both of these films are what I like to call "hybrid musicals". They're not your traditional musicals where the characters break out in song out in the open, and the imagined music in their heads in glaring. These "hybrid musicals", the songs are performed by the characters- with instruments, but they fuel the story along in a similar way to a traditional musical.
The story of this film was inspired by "A Star is Born" with Mark Ruffalo as a down-on-his-luck former famous recording producer, who stumbles across a struggling musician in a nightclub (Knightly- who I believe was doing her own singing in this, but as I was watching this, I actually thought it was NOT her-??). He then takes her under his wing as he tries to guide her music to internet success in the midst of juggling the lives of his ex-wife and teenage daughter- Catherine Keener and Haley Steinfeld (the 2010 "True Grit" remake). Mos Def co-stars as his former partner, who still runs/owns the firm they created together, and Adam Levine has what I believe is his first film role. Big thumbs up for this one!