Review of Music and Lyrics (2007) by Allenn. — 27 Mar 2007

What screenwriting course, book or set of self-hypnosis tapes has writer-director Marc Lawrence been availing himself of lately? The man who brought us Miss Congeniality (a thoroughly mediocre script that was made watchable by an extremely engaging cast) and Two Weeks Notice (a desperate, laugh-free effort that even the cast didn't help) has made a 1000% quantum leap over his previous efforts, giving us an uncommonly smart, endearing and consistently funny romantic comedy that's also uncommonly perceptive about the American popular music industry, circa the 1980s and today.

The MTV-video parody that opens the film is so delightful, well observed and absolutely spot-on that I was prepared to be let down by everything that followed, and I absolutely wasn't: this tale of how has-been Pop! singer Alex Fletcher (Hugh Grant channeling Andrew Ridgely, the half of Wham! that doubles as a Trivial Pursuit question) and a young woman, Sophie Ridgely (Drew Barrymore, intensifying all the crushes on her that currently exist and undoubtedly starting a few new ones) who's better at writing lyrics than watering plants, get together both professionally and personally is not only beautifully constructed in the manner of some of the best "battle of the sexes" comedies of the 1940s and 50s, but features endless bright dialogue, extremely catchy songs that are also accurate period pastiches, and--best of all--two flawed but intelligent, lovable human beings you really care about and root for.

Nothing wrong with the supporting players, either: Brad Garrett, as Grant's sweetly resigned manager, rises from the ashes of his embarrassing work in The Pacifier to prove that there really is life after Everybody Loves Raymond, while Kristen Johnston, the rubber-faced Amazon from 3rd Rock from the Sun, is a comic marvel as Barrymore's giddy but wise older sister--the almost-throwaway sequence in which she tries to get her picture taken with Grant is a gem! Equally good, both in conception and interpretation, is Haley Bennett as Cora Corman, the flavor-of-the-month trillion-selling artist that Grant and Barrymore are writing for; Lawrence makes the very smart move of writing her as spoiled but not a brat.

(She's predictably wrongheaded in some major ways, but that's because she's young and placed in the middle of an extraordinary situation she doesn't have the experience or wisdom to handle; unlike certain current pop stars we could name, she retains enough decency and common sense to assure us that she'll turn out fundamentally OK when she grows up.

) The one common characteristic shared by romantic comedies and horror films (besides the fact that very few of either reach $100 million at the box office) is that in both genres you have to slog through a lot of dreck to find a good one: with every When Harry Met Sally.

.. or Pretty Woman comes a dozen Must Love Dogs, Wedding Dates or Little Black Books. That's why it's so pleasantly surprising to come up with not one but two terrific ones in the last four months: the warm, uncommonly satisfying crowd-pleaser The Holiday and this.

If my luck in other areas of life runs parallel to this, perhaps I'm doing the wrong thing at this moment.