Pop Culture Rewind: Begin Again and the Paradoxical Place of Music Films

So, after the brutal, disturbing viewing experience that was Squid Game, I decided to venture into some feel-good territory. Netflix suggested Begin Again, and I thought "Mark Ruffalo? Keira Knightly? Adam Levine? How have I not seen this?" The answer is - I might have - but it was released in 2013 which was the year of postpartum depression and a breastfeeding infant - so if I saw it, I forgot about it. 

But I decided to give it another shot and now I CAN'T. STOP. Thinking about it. (BTW - I will spoil this if you haven't seen it - just so you know) 

First, let me say I don't think this film aged particularly well - much like a lot of music films. I'm the first person to defend Empire Records because I LOVE it, yet I'm highly aware that it didn't age well and is a product of its time (but I will always be down for Rex Manning Day). Begin Again is in the same boat for me - its core argument that the internet will free artists from labels taking their money and messing up their artistic vision isn't wrong exactly. It just feels outdated given that Alexa is now streaming the whole soundtrack for me as I write this. 

That said, what captivated me so concretely about this film were the delicate performances Ruffalo and Knightly managed that developed an intimate, meaningful relationship that told a different kind of love story. It's not about boy meets girl and happily ever after - it's about boy meets girl when they are both broken and somehow meeting manages to help them both become better versions of themselves. They confront their internal faults, discover their own weaknesses, and working creatively together makes them stronger and more functional humans. Isn't that a real love story? 

Levine is clearly not an actor, but he did pretty well, especially when scenes allowed him to use musical performance in lieu of dialogue. The other characters in the film are basically thin caricatures (except for Catherine Keener, who is woefully underutilized, isn't given much to work with and still manages to be brilliant). 

Probably what hit me the hardest is the music. If you have ever worked with musicians or have a musical brain at all, you've had those interactions where someone "hears" things others don't. Early in the film, Knightly sings a super depressing acoustic guitar piece at an open mic night and is basically panned by the crowd. It's just her, a very simple melody and a guitar. She knows it kinda sucked and she can't get off the stage fast enough. Then you see the scene again through Ruffalo's character, and I've never seen a better capture of how a musical brain works - he hears the score and the harmony over Knightly's performance and is captivated. As the audience, since you saw version one and then see version two, you now see what the musical brain sees: 

Given that this film seemed to appear and fade away without much fanfare, it obviously wasn't music that took the world by storm. But my colleague Jenn Billinson and I wrote about how soundtracking a story, even with music you wouldn't think stands alone well, can fundamentally change both the story and the emotion in a visual piece. And even when the music has quite literal meanings connected to the story - as is the case for the songs in this film - the layers of relational development allow you to read the pieces against more than what they are penned to mean. It's been damn near impossible to get out of my head. If you like music films and you haven't seen this - or it's been a while and you forgot about it - maybe revisit it. Perhaps you'll see something new and it'll unlock something for you emotionally like it did for me.