Music and Lyrics (2007)

It's a fun movie. Kinda like the romantic musicals that used to be staples, which seems to be a detriment to a lot of reviewers here.But the script is also wickedly smart, with stuff that remains topical, because a story about an '80s generation pop star trying to please a millennial generation pop star with "music and lyrics" dreamt up on the fly says a lot about the meaning of being... a creative person who is just trying to pay their rent/find love.Ya know. Silly stuff like pursuing your dreams, and why people ever dream to begin with....

Music and Lyrics (2007): Dir: Marc Lawrence / Cast: Hugh Grant, Drew Barrymore, Haley Bennett, Kristen Johnston, Campbell Scott: Endearing romantic comedy about collaboration. Hugh Grant plays a washed up 1980's pop musician who is given opportunity to write a song for new pop sensation Cora but must rely on the woman who waters his plants since his lyrics skills are weak. Although formula in structure director Marc Lawrence makes hilarious jabs at the 1980's pop scene. This is a vast improvement over his previous film Two Weeks Notice, which also starred Grant but here he is backed with 80's satire elements that work much better. Grant plays off weakness and desire with perfect comic pitch. In the film's opening he is shown in full 80's drag before his plummet from success. Drew Barrymore is superb writing lyrics yet haunted by a past relationship. It is obvious that they will romantically unite but what works is his talent verses her ability to write lyrics. Supporting players are unfortunately flat although Haley Bennett as Cora is fetching. Cora is obviously a reference to Britney Spears and selling sexuality and Bennett spares no punches. Campbell Scott plays Barrymore's ex-boyfriend professor whom she encounters by chance but Grant ends up in a scuffle with in her defence. Retrospect pop culture and the innocence spawn from what has come to pass. Score: 8 ½ / 10

This movie is about a delightful couple who are writing a song based on Uplifting the heart. Alex Fletcher who is very dedicated to his work Tries his best to convince Sophie Fisher to help him write lyrics. Sophie Fisher is still hung up on her ex-boyfriend and is suffering From a bad relationship. However, this plot of the story is very ironic And this is helping Alex Fletcher who is the protagonist of the movie is indeed helping him in his song. What Alex Fletcher is trying to do, is trying to help Sophie Fisher express herself on paper to write a beautiful delightful song. Furthermore, they realize they are falling For each other with a song yet to be finished.

"Music and Lyrics" finds the usually intolerable Hugh Grant playing a washed up pop singer who meets a young songwriter, played with customary cuteness by actress Drew Barrymore. As per formula, he's cynical about music and the music industry, but her optimism, love and energy rekindles his zest for art and life. They fall in love, break apart, and then get married, the film climaxing with Grant writing a song for Drew and then revealing it to her on stage in front of a crowd of thousands.It's your standard boy meets girl, boy loses girls, boy gets girl back formula. What's different here is that the film has been deliberately reverse engineered, the film-makers starting with a very specific set of problems: how to get a guy and girl romantically writing songs and singing for one another, and how to climax the film with the guy expressing his love to the girl via song in front of a large public audience. As cinema and music, or rather pop-cinema and pop-music, largely define man's understanding of love and romance, the intention here is to tap into a kind of ultra romance, director Marc Lawrence trying to create a more mainstream version of what John Carney did a year earlier with his indie film "Once" (also another Barrymore project, "The Wedding Singer").The film is at its best when its satirising 1980s glamour and pop music. It also pokes fun at the contemporary music scene (many young, oversexed, dumb pop stars gyrating for their rumbustious fans), but such jabs are less funny. As with most of these films, the climax must be a public event, we the audience watching as an audience watches our heroes. This both enfolds us in the drama and taps into a kind of primal need for public validation.Usually with these films the female role is given to a foreigner, someone verbally impaired. It's the male character who masters language and is in a position of linguistic dominance. Here Barrymore is the master of words and Grant's the stammering goof-ball.Note that both actors are all surfaces. They're constantly blasting us with ultra cute, ultra romantic, ultra bashful, ultra suggestive, don't-you-want-to-just-kiss-me-now poses. Every gesture, pose and inflection is relentlessly calculated. Barrymore's an old hand at this now. Grant too. Love is itself a game of broadcasted and exchanged signs.7.9/10 – Romantic comedies, keeping the human species breeding since 1909. Worth one viewing.