I do love movies about music, even if I'm not a huge fan of the music, but the band Rudderless got an interesting start.
Sam Manning is a father who lost his son in a tragic campus shooting. As his life unravels, he discovers his late son's talent for song writing. As a way to connect with his son, Sam begins performing his songs. This is were he meets Quentin, a kid the same age as his boy who falls passionately in love with the songs he hears Sam plays, and convinces Sam that he can add something to the music. Thus the band Rudderless was formed.
This is the reason why I wanted to see the movie, but what's great about the film is that the story is deeper than that, especially when we start to learn ore about Sam's son Josh.
Billy Crudup as Sam was great. It was emotional watching him deal with something that he could not deal with. The scenes where he hit the bottle and then go into self destruction mode were just too real. Anton Yelchin as Quentin was terrific. The movie is split in-between Drama and music and while Crudup brought the Drama, it was Yelchin who brought most of the music.
The great Laurence Fishburne was also part of the cast, as well as Selena Gomez who did great in her small but meaningful part in the film.
Plus the Director himself William H. Macy has a small role in his directorial debut.
A passionate musical drama for the music lover in all of us.