“Power Ballad” Review

Creating great art that portrays great art is always a monumental challenge. Generally speaking, if a filmmaker was capable of writing a number one song, they would be doing that rather than making a movie about it.

The first time Paul Rudd plays “How to Write a Song Without You”, the creative authorship of this song being the central conflict of “Power Ballad”, I shrugged. Even as I struggled to distinguish this one song from all the others that were dismissed as too dull for mass appeal, I chose to believe all of the characters onscreen, suspend my disbelief, and accept that in the universe of “Power Ballad”, this was an undeniable mega-hit on par with The Beatles.

The second time the song plays, my personal indifference clashed even more with every character on screen falling over themselves to celebrate this as the next big thing.

By the tenth or so time the song plays, its one-time harmless appeal becomes malignant, each repetition sharpening its dullness into a razor-like mediocrity, offensive in its blandness and in the filmmaker’s desperation to convince us it’s a masterpiece. “Power Ballad” feels less like a movie than a social experiment to see if a hit song can be willed into existence through sheer repetition. Sadly enough, the song and the movie may strive for greatness but achieves only a blasé madness.

Rick Power (Paul Rudd) was once an up-and-coming musician but after meeting his wife and having a daughter, he gave up his rockstar aspirations in favor of humble work in a wedding band in Ireland. Twenty years on, he performs at a wedding in which Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas), a one time boy band idol trying to breakthrough as a solo artist, attends as a guest. After playing a song together and finding common-ground in their shared desire to be taken more seriously as artists, Rick and Danny spend the night together, playing music and recording songs. Late into the night, Rick strums on a guitar and sings what will become “How to Write a Song Without You”, a modest ballad he has been tinkering with for years.

They end the night on good terms, with Danny gifting Rick one of his personal guitars. Then, six months later, while walking through a mall, Rick stops dead in his tracks. Over the mall speakers, he hears a familiar song and, after some quick research, discovers that Danny has made “How to Write a Song Without You” into a pop smash, taking sole credit for the work that finally boosts his struggling solo career. Rick sets out to get his deserved recognition for his art: from his family, his friends, and ultimately from Danny himself.

Director John Carney has constantly operated in these dramatic worlds of idealistic, pure-hearted musicians, with sappy sad boys glorifying the power of music. Given the thematic overtures of the purity of real music, it’s a little jarring that so much of the music played in the film is obviously Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas lip-syncing to heavily produced vocals.

The usually charming Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas, playing a fictionalized version of himself, are not the problem with this movie, though they are desperately in need of more to do. The plot is whisper-thin, with less thought given to dramatic scene-building than how often to play the same song over and over and over again. Each repetition does the song, and the film, a disservice by shining a light on just how shallow and stale the characters and their music truly are.

The measuring stick for “Power Ballad” is simple : if you find yourself enjoying the sappy, cloying “How to Make a Song Without You, then you’re in luck. But if, like me, you find the song nauseating, then watching “Power Ballad” will only result in repetitive torment.

Power Ballad
Rated R for language throughout and some drug use.
Running Time: 1 hour and 38 minutes

Director John Carney
Writers John Carney, Peter McDonald
Stars Paul Rudd, Nick Jonas, Peter McDonald, Marcella Plunkett, Havana Rose Liu, Jack Reynor
Rating R
Running Time 98 Minutes
Genres Comedy, Drama, Music