Review of Hearts Beat Loud (2018) by John M — 30 Sep 2018

Making music. So this is about a single father (Nick Offerman). His daughter (Kiersey Clemons) is about to leave for college, and he wants her to have a good last summer break. They both like music, so why not start a band together? Now I saw that this was playing at my local art house theater a while back, but I never ended up taking the time.

All I really knew about it was that it starred Nick Offerman, which, speaking candidly, was enough to catch my attention. I bumped it to the top of my queue when it finally hit home market, and while I think the people who this is made for will love it, I do not consider myself to be a part of that demographic.

Now to this movie's credit, I don't have a whole lot of complaints about it. This is well-made throughout, and I dug this when it started. Nick Offerman is always entertaining to watch, and likely always will be.

It is difficult to watch one of his movies or shows and not immediately see Ron Swanson, but that is only because he played that character so exceptionally well and put a lot of himself into that role.

His character in Hearts Beat Loud wouldn't be out of place in a story like High Fidelity; he doesn't make things easy on himself, and he even owns a poorly performing record store. I like the relationship between him and his daughter, and that is probably where this film has the most heart, no pun intended.

This may have just been me, but I feel that Clemons is a bit green as an actress, and even though I have seen her perform well before in Dope, I wasn't wholly buying her in this. This is a very small and very indie little movie, and if you are into the process of putting music together, than this is absolutely for you.

As for me, I seldom connect with stories like this, and at best I felt that I appreciated the craft behind this. If you think that this is for you, then by all means, check it out. You probably will be glad that you did.

But as always, I can only rate movies for myself, so I have to rank it accordingly.