Music and Lyrics

Hugh Grant
Drew Barrymore
Brad Garrett
Scott Porter
Directed by: Marc Lawrence

It seems that every weekend there is some rehashed and completely forgettable romantic comedy being set to wide release. It would be nice to see something refreshing and different that makes us feel warm and maybe gives us something to think about. This, sadly enough, isn’t it. Music and Lyrics is just another romantic comedy. This one isn’t completely like the other ones though, the main characters never seem to have any kind of chemistry.

Music and Lyrics is about the less successful member of a duo who managed to put together a one hit wonder in the 80s. He is hired to write a hit song for the most popular female singer in the world. One problem, he isn’t really any good at writing songs. Enter Sophie Fisher (Barrymore) as a temporary plant waterer who has a penchant for words. In the process of writing the song, they fall for each other, hitting more than a few speed bumps on the road to love.

First and foremost, if the main characters don’t seem to connect at any level, even the most exciting and heartwarming plot can’t be salvaged. While Drew Barrymore was her normal completely adorable self, Hugh Grant at times seemed like an old man and while I am normally a fan, he seemed completely out of place. At times it was a distraction and made it hard to get back into the film.

Unfortunately, the rest of the film didn’t help to keep my attention. The film is a soft PG-13 and, other than furtive glances, a little gushing, and the old “I need to tell you how I feel in a song” plot device, without cliché after cliché to remind me it would be easy to fall into the idea that both main characters were just really good friends. This film is almost completely devoid of the romance you would expect in a “romantic comedy”.

The filmmakers seem to try and hide the fact that this film really doesn’t seem to work on any level that would make it romantic, or even a decent film to sit through, they seem to rely pretty heavily on clichés that only worked the first hundred times they were used, in much better films. There really is no reason to see this film when you can easily rent something much better from the entire “romantic comedy” section of your local Blockbuster Video.
 

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