This short musical sees a struggling singer heading out of a recording session as she cannot get anything to flow. In the park she bumps into a stranger and the pair get into an impromptu performance which leads her to find her inspiration again.
As a narrative the film is pretty simple, and I guess there is a pleasure in that aspect of it, since it gives more space for the two musical numbers. However at the same time, it doesn't give much space for the film to have nuance – it really is as simple as I describe and it steps between moments on the way to the end. The guts of the film is the music. The main song is a cover of Jackie Wilson Says – a Van Morrison song. Being Belfast-born, that is pretty sacred ground to be covering, although the film does it reasonably well, and the performance is quite fun. The final song has more honesty to it, and I liked how it was performed straight. However, the two songs really are the film, and neither in themselves knocked it out of the park – which does rather leave the film weaker.
The big selling point I suppose is the involvement of Mary Elizabeth Winstead. She is good, has a good voice, and her performance does capture that movement from 'rut' to 'mojo' in small ways, which does add to the film in a way that is not explicitly there in the dialogue. Even with this though, the film was a throwaway piece – it has elements of fun and message, but it neither soars enough, or is grounded enough to stick in the mind for long.
