POWER BALLAD Review

There are certain pop rock songs that you pretend you don't know. John Carney has built a career out of making people like you feel okay about liking those songs. He has done just that with Power Ballad, his first feature in almost 20 years. The film caught me by surprise on an otherwise unimportant day.

In the film, Paul Rudd plays the titular character who is a wedding singer in Ireland. He had the potential to make it big in the pop music world. He missed the chance, made his peace with it, and built a truly happy life in its place. Rudd’s character is charming, funny, and a little lost. He plays the character with great spell binding accuracy. He witnesses his song getting played in a shopping mall, leaving him as a lost soul on an escalator making his world a desolate place. I could feel that on a spiritual level.

I can’t believe I’m writing this, but Nick Jonas is quietly a little extraordinary. He plays Danny, a former boy band member, and what makes this performance so strong is what he doesn’t do. Danny isn’t a villain. He is a person who not only made a selfish decision, but had to continue making selfish decisions, justifying each step the way we do when we know we’ve gone too far. Jonas perfectly captures that in a subtext behind a smile that is just barely too rehearsed. It’s really extraordinary.

Power Ballad accomplishes something that Carney has not accomplished before, which is actual dramatic tension. His prior films have been warm and lovely and float by on a good feeling, but this has an actual injury that runs through it. A man’s dream was stolen, and nobody believes him; his family looks at him with that specific look that means they love him, but they think he’s a little crazy. Watching Rick fight to recapture what is truly his, against the odds of people with lawyers, money, and a head start, is absolutely gripping.

Rick and his adorably useless bandmate sneaking into a Hollywood mansion party in the last act should feel like a silly movie trope, but it feels earned and real, and is at one point almost unbearably funny.

Carney sticks the landing. He really does.

Carney would want you to own your sappiness.

🍿 SCORE = 84/100