Music is emotion and the best artists often use their own experiences to make memorable songs. When you base your movie on the process of creation, it can add something to a movie that you connect to more strongly. Director John Carney seems to be specialized when it comes to creating music, just think of Once, Begin Again and Sing Street. They all deal with music and love. His movies probably are the best in this subgenre. Hearts Beat Loud isn’t directed by him, but also revolves about creating music, relationships and which things inspire you.
Frank Fisher (Nick Offerman) is a single father who owns a record store and loves making music together with his daughter Sam (Kiersey Clemons). She has reached a point in her life however where she’s planning to spread her wings and move out of her father’s house to study. There are other things she finds more interesting and is not that interested in music anymore. Still Frank manages to convince her to do a jam session. They record a song and he decides to upload it to YouTube. It doesn’t take long before the song ends up in a popular playlist and this father/daughter band has to decide if they should make more music.
This film is best described as a light-version of what Carney makes. It has got all the right elements, a tense atmosphere (between various characters, both when it comes to love and other personal relationships), great songs and a great vibe. Director Brett Haley doesn’t succeed however in completely getting you invested on an emotional level. Despite that Hearts Beat Loud is a movie well worth watching, because Nick Offerman, Kiersey Clemons, Toni Collette, Sasha Lane and Ted Danson are a joy to watch and really sell this movie.
[score7]