Movie Review: In the Adorable "Hearts Beat Loud", Dad and Daughter Rock On

The healing power of music—and Nick Offerman’s giddy laugh—save the day in likable cheeseball drama Hearts Beat Loud.

Describing a movie as 'like High Fidelity but more precocious' sounds like a death-blow. Mercifully, Hearts Beat Loud (which, okay, does fit that concerning description) has an irresistible sweetness that overcomes its cutesy, indulgent elements. And for that, you can thank stars Nick Offerman and Kiersey Clemons.

Offerman—better known as Parks and Recreation’s iconic, principled, private Ron Swanson—has been a one-percenter in countless indie flicks for the better part of a decade. Finally, he gets his leading role, and Hearts Beat Loud is proof that putting him front-and-centre is a no-brainer. Plus, in a world where ‘dad-ness’ is the richest currency around, he will now stand tall among the internet’s most beloved dads.

Here, as failed musician and New York record-store proprietor Frank Fisher, he gets to convey a complicated inner life (honed by years of acting as silent and still as possible on Parks and Rec). Frank’s working through grief: as a widow and as a single father about to lose his teenage daughter Sam (Clemons) to UCLA when summer break ends. But Offerman also gets to be giddy and silly as well, giggling coquettishly as he compels Sam to take a break from her pre-Med study and jam with him.

She reluctantly agrees, and they end up improvising a bouncy pop song called, you guessed it, "Hearts Beat Loud". (Clemons, from Netflix’s Easy, and a refugee from the Flatliners remake, has incredible pipes.)

Frank can’t believe their musical alchemy; however, Sam insists: "We’re not a band." He takes it literally, uploading the tune to Spotify under the artist name We’re Not a Band. And when it ends up becoming a minor viral hit, his lets his imagination run wild, and soon he’s plotting their future as rock stars. In steps Sam to stomp on his dream; the kid, in a neat twist, acting as the parent. Will she bend, before the picture ends, to offer her approval? I don’t know; have you ever seen a movie before?

Writer-director Brett Haley (he shares a co-writing credit with Marc Basch) isn’t re-inventing the musical scales. In fact, like any good pop song, Hearts Beat Loud plays melodies that immediately ring familiar, casting Ted Danson as a barman (stop me if you’ve heard that one before) and Blythe Danner as Frank’s spunky mum. The songs, too, are catchy, yet benign. Frank is a fan of Animal Collective and Wilco (Jeff Tweedy delivers the year’s most awkward cameo to boot), and I suppose the music of We’re Not a Band, written by Keegan DeWitt, is what happens when you combine those artists and shave away the edges.

And that’s ultimately what Hearts Beat Loud feels like: a song that hits familiar beats precisely because they’ve worked elsewhere before. Other times, Hearts Beat Loud seems like Haley’s attempts to make a movie mix-tape, even having Sam’s girlfriend, Rose (Sasha Lane) recommend Mitski’s "Your Best American Girl" a’la Natalie Portman in Garden State.

Its unique wrinkles come courtesy of Offerman and Clemons, who flip the typical parent-kid film relationship, as well as Toni Collette as Frank’s landlady, whom Haley admirably refuses to reduce to a mere love interest. (Though, he has her sing Chairlift’s "Bruises" at a karaoke bar, which is a cardinal sin: it's great, but unless everyone knows the lyrics, it’s not fun for anyone.) Plus, it admirably attempts to capture that post-high school, pre-college fear of 'the future', offering an honest portrayal of how that feeling never really goes away.

Hearts Beat Loud is an easy watch, and despite not living up to High Fidelity (or Win Win, which is a spiritual sibling that packs a powerful wallop), I was happy to see it, largely due to its performers. I guess you could say it's the same old song, but with a different meaning since it cast 'Ron'.

3.5/5

Hearts Beat Loud arrives in select Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney cinemas from 6 September. It arrives at Perth’s Luna Palace Cinemas and Sydney’s Golden Age Cinema 13 September. Get the list of cinemas here. Rated PG for mild themes, coarse language and drug references.