Feel-good music biz movie

Rating: 8/10 (2 December 2014)

Writer-director John Carney's Begin Again (trailer) is a music business movie that pushes the questionable idea that Talent Will Out—in this case the talent-spotting talent of Mark Ruffalo as an out-of-luck music producer and the singer-songwriter talent of, unexpectedly, Keira Knightley. Knightley is less believable than the scruffy Ruffalo, but this is her least self-conscious performance I've seen. The music-making partnership between them could easily devolve into cliché, but I'm glad to say it escapes that trap, as they set up shop in various outdoor Manhattan locations to record the tracks of her possible breakout album. Meanwhile, he defends her potential to his former recording-company partner, enjoyably played by Mos Def. Both lead characters are separated from their significant others—Knightley from her success-obsessed boyfriend, played by real-life music star Adam Levine, and Ruffalo from his wife, played by Catherine Keener in too small a role. Everyone learns who they are.