Hugh Grant may be best known for his shtick of being "charmingly befuddled," as noted in a particularly memorable side gag on Family Guy, but after watching a handful of his movies, you begin to realize something about the Brit: his characters are so often sculpted from the same mold, but his willingness to be a self-deprecating, self-involved jerk keeps the clay from hardening into a boring lump. If you don't quite understand what I mean, check out American Dreamz and take special note of how Grant, playing the same character he has played since Bridget Jones' Diary, is the only tolerable part of the movie.
In Music and Lyrics, Grant plays Alex Fletcher, the washed-up half of an '80s group called PoP. His singing partner left to pursue a solo career, and Alex was left without someone to craft lyrics to his compositions. He spends most of his time performing PoP's greatest hits solo at amusement parks, mall, and craft fairs, and the rest trying to deflect the "has been" label by making a joke of himself before anyone else can. Challenged to write a chart-topping hit for a young popster (Haley Bennett as Cora), Alex can only come up with music but connects with a goofy young girl (Drew Barrymore as Sophie Fisher) with a hidden talent for poetry.
Grant and Barrymore play off each other well, as the process of writing a hit song becomes a metaphor for the ups and downs of their relationship. Both have their vulnerabilities, but their focus on making tolerable music allows them to ignore it. The pacing of the movie does the relationship no favors, though, as the best scenes for them to connect are thrust early into the plot, before they're comfortable enough to do anything about it. Normally, this would create a nice tension; here, it seems more frustrating that nobody thought to up the romantic ante in the scenes.
The film balances the fizzling opportunities for chemistry with some decent comedy, coming largely from Grant and Barrymore but with surprising stealth by Bennett and Brad Garrett, playing Alex's agent. Bennett, in particular, plays Cora as a spacey, airheaded pop princess who likes to feel smarter by practicing Eastern religions.
Even though we've seen both of the lead actors in similar roles - Grant in everything and Barrymore in The Wedding Singer - Music and Lyrics holds its own as a harmless romantic comedy. Like the song that Alex and Sophie come up with, the movie will be forgotten soon after it ends, but it provides a fair amount of sweetness and laughter while you're watching it.
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