POWER BALLAD
- Colin Fraser
- 11 hours ago
- 2 min read
TWO AND A HALF STARS A wedding-band singer believes a former boy-band star stole his song. He could be right.
COMEDY DRAMA IRELAND English #POWERBALLAD Starring Paul Rudd, Nick Jonas
There’s a certain agreeable familiarity to POWER BALLAD, the latest from John Carney, who continues to refine his preferred recipe: emotionally wounded Irish souls, attractive American ring-ins, music as therapy and just enough whimsy to sand down any hard edges.
Here the story revolves around Rick (Paul Rudd) a once-promising artist, now-wedding band frontman whose life implodes after a chance encounter with Danny (Nick Jonas), a former boy-band singer. He’s working on his breakthrough as a solo star and the pair spend a night riffing on ideas. Six months later, Danny’s gone global with a song Rick insists was one of his. But without proof it’s all he-says-he-says as the film drifts into questions of authorship, memory and whether music can still mean something once lawyers and record executives start sniffing around.
Events develop exactly how you would expect them to. Relationships fray, loyalties wobble and everyone circles around the central tune with phone-torches held aloft as if it contains the meaning of life itself. To be fair, it is a catchy tune. Yet for a film hinging on one supposedly transcendent song, the emotional stakes never quite land. Carney wants the audience to feel swept away by the music, but the film remains curiously safe and sealed off. Inert. The sharper, messier version of this story - one that leans harder into either comedy or heartbreak or both - keeps hovering just out of reach.
Still, it’s amiable enough. Jonas has an easy screen presence and a decent chemistry with the ensemble. It helps being an ex boy-band singer turned solo star himself. Rudd is particularly well cast as a slightly worn-down musician still dining out on old charisma and pub-gig charm. He gives the film a lived-in quality that almost disguises how mechanically everything else unfolds.
But there’s also the lingering sense that Carney is now working to a formula. Earlier films like ONCE drew audiences through emotional intimacy and ragged sincerity. POWER BALLAD feels more like background accompaniment, an album filler: pleasant, painless and mildly diverting. This the second film you watch on a ten-hour flight. The one that gives you something to hum while rummaging for another tiny bag of peanuts.
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