Review: Actors keep ‘Music' in tune

Review: Actors keep ‘Music' in tune

If Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore don't burn down the house with any sparks they set off in "Music and Lyrics,” their valentine to moviegoers, they at least make it amusingly watchable.

It's about songwriting, has-been pop stars, the Britney-Christina-Shakira belly dancers of girl pop and not much else. Any romantic or personality "issues” it reaches for, it never quite grasps.

But if you get any pleasure from watching two of the best romantic comedy actors of the past 20 years do their thing and give their all, then this is the date movie for you.

Go if for no other reason than you may never have the chance to see either of them sing again.

In a spot-on and hilarious opening, we see an '80s British pop band in the Spandau Ballet/Wham! mold bounce through a video of their tune "You Are Silver, I Am Gold” They were called PoP. And Alex (Grant) used to be their keyboardist, composer and rump-shaking backup sex symbol.

The band broke up. The lead singer's a huge Hollywood star. Alex is stuck doing county fairs, amusement parks and high school reunions, singing and shimmying in front of shrieking 40-somethings. He's being recruited for "'80s Has Been” boxing matches.

Then, his manager (Brad Garrett) wins him a second chance. The pop star of the moment, Cora (Haley Bennett, play-acting at being dim and inexpressive, we hope), was a fan as a toddler. She wants Alex to write her a new break-up-with-my-beau tune, with this title, "Working Our Way Back to Love.”

By Friday. Big problem.

Bigger problem: He doesn't do lyrics.

He tries out a professional lyricist, and they don't click. But Sophie (Barrymore), who comes in to tend to his plants, is a lyricist savant.

Alex needs her help. She's reluctant, but Alex wins Sophie over, and they get down to it, him noodling at the keyboard (Grant really plays) and her nervously clicking her pen.

"We're not writing the Jupiter Symphony here,” he said. "It's a song for someone whose last hit was ‘Welcome to Booty-town.'”

The movie's sense of late '80s pop is almost as accurate as its feel for early '80s romantic comedies. This is 1982's "Best Friends” without enough gags to sustain it, a comedy built on the pre-"Four Weddings and a Funeral” business model.

Sandra Bullock tied her career to writer-director Marc Lawrence until that sad little nothing "Two Weeks Notice,” and she wisely palmed him off on Grant, who deserves better. Still, this is no "American Dreamz.” Grant is as charming as ever, and he hurls himself into the part. Singing, hip-shaking and tossing off the quips, he's almost the Hugh of old.

Barrymore, playing yet another lovelorn waif, does something she wouldn't do even when Woody Allen asked her to in "Everyone Says I Love You.” She sings, and you've got to appreciate the guts of an actor willing to sing, dance and willing to say, even in character, "I'm a happy has-been.”

— Roger Moore, The Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel
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