Constant Viewer: Music and Lyrics

Hugh Grant is a better actor with more range than the public, at least so far, has wished from him. In that sense, he seems still trapped in a typecast as the English Jimmy Stewart of the last ten or fifteen years (the current American Jimmy Stewart being Tom Hanks). There are worse fates, to be sure. Still, as even Stewart discovered, there comes a time when the bumbling nice guy that audiences found so endearing from an actor in his thirties grows, like the actor himself, a bit long in the tooth as he nears fifty. Stewart found a second career playing tough and grizzled characters in westerns, an option not available these days even to Hanks, let alone Grant.

For now, however, Grant continues to play Hugh Grant parts, the latest being has-been ‘80’s pop singer Alex Fletcher in Music and Lyrics. Grant plays against Drew Barrymore as Sophie Fisher in what amounts to little more than a ninety-six minute pop song with a dollop of rarely witty dialog between takes. The plot? Oh, well, if you insist. They write a song for a vapid pop diva to rescue Fletcher's now ebbing oldies-act career. He writes melodies, she writes lyrics; together, they fight crime! (No, not that last bit, though it might have helped.)

All romantic comedies are formulaic; it could hardly be otherwise. But the formula requires that its ingredients combine properly; hence, the notion of screen chemistry. Because the chemistry is lacking here, the clichéd ‘redemptive power of love’ that reconciles the estranged lovers in the final reel feels as mechanical as, in fact, it always really is. Don't get Constant Viewer wrong here; he loves well made romantic comedies and, for all its artifice, thinks Notting Hill is a fine example of the genre where the chemistry works well. When he's at the top of his game, Hugh Grant does a great Hugh Grant, and Barrymore tries valiantly to make the most of her part here; but Grant basically phones it in on this one, and it shows. If any tears are shed during the big final scene, the cause will be airborne allergens.

Music and Lyrics is nearing the end of its theatrical run now. Constant Viewer saw it today at a $1 matinée, largely because Grant’s recent baked beans episode reminded CV it was still on the big screen. See it, if you must, when it is released soon on DVD.

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BONUS SNIPE: As if the prospect of Angelina Jolie (and possibly master thespian Brad Pitt, too!) starring in a film version of Atlas Shrugged wasn’t funny enough, CV recently discovered that a film version of the wonderful 1960’s television western, Have Gun – Will Travel, is in the works. And who is slated to reprise Richard Boone’s Paladin? Eminem. You can’t make this stuff up, folks.