MUSIC AND LYRICS

Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Warner Bros.
Grade: C+
Directed by: Marc Lawrence
Written By: Marc Lawrence
Cast: Hugh Grant, Drew Barrymore, Kristen Johnston, Haley
Bennett, Brad Garrett, Campbell Scott
Screened at: AMC Linc Sq., NYC, 2/7/07
Opens: February 14, 2007

If love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage, then
so do musicians and lyricists. You can't have one without the
other, because more often than not, those who can write music
can't pen words and those who are adept verbally are tone-deaf
at the keyboard. Good thing too, because otherwise how would
a guy who is afraid of commitment and a gal who was hurt by
an ex-boyfriend ever get together?

In his movie, "Music and Lyrics," Marc Lawrence, who is equally
average as both a scripter and director–but who does rely on
Adam Schlesinger for some catchy eighties-style music and
Xaviet Perez Grobet for eye-catching photography--dishes up
some light romance featuring two of cinema's pleasant
performers in roles that do not greatly challenge their talents or
push envelopes in the romantic comedy genre by length, width
depth or height. "Music and Lyrics" is cotton candy that goes
down the hatch easily enough providing neither nourishment nor
fiber nor memories the morning after.

After some shades-of-pink introduction featuring a younger Alex
Fletcher (Hugh Grant) performing in an eighties pop group
knows as the Pops, director Lawrence takes us to the now has-
been Fletcher's digs as the former man-about-town lounges
about in Cole Porter threads wondering how he will meet a
deadline to knock out some lyrics for the current pop teen queen
Cora Coleman (newcomer Haley Bennett), a blonde knockout
who combines spiritual songs with scantily clad dancing. As
though he had just rubbed Aladdin's lamp, in comes plant-sitter
Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore), still smarting from callous
treatment by her ex, Sloan Cates (Campbell Scott) and
pressured to set up a meeting with Fletcher by Sophie's still-in-
love sister and long-term fan, Rhonda (Kristen Johnston).

As is typical in romantic comedies, the relationship between
Alex and Sophie is fragile, the two destined to become a team
by the story's conclusion. This is Hugh Grant's film, depending
as it does on the man's one-liners, though this time Grant does
not depend on his signature eye-blinks and stutters.

The picture has its moments, with good support by Fletcher's
pushy manager, Chris Riley (Brad Garrett), and some hot
dancing by the seductive Haley Bennett. But Kristen Johnston's
character Rhonda simply grates as Sophie's sister, married with
two kids but hopelessly infatuated for the past twenty years with
her high-school pop singer, and Hugh Grant has been in so
many superior films that one can't help comparing this
unfavorably to the likes of "About a Boy," "Bridget Jones's
Diary," "Notting Hill," "Sense and Sensibility," and "Four
Weddings and a Funeral."

Rated PG-13. 105 minutes 2007 by Harvey Karten
Member: NY Film Critics Online