Music and Lyrics (2007)

"...appealing...infuses the overall plot with a satire of the music industry, and the pop tunes and lyrics are catchy.  Claudia Puig, USA Today
"A satisfying scoop of audiovisual comfort food.  Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Hilarious, sweetly romantic and as infectious as a great pop song, this one hits all the right notes.  Dan Jewel, Life & Style
"This movie doesn't pretend to be anything more than a cheerful night out, and on that count it scores.  Michael Sragow, Baltimore Sun
"...an unusually witty and intelligent romantic comedy and Hollywood's best Valentine's Day gift in years.  William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Editor's Note Alex Fletcher (Hugh Grant) is a cynical and self-deprecating former pop idol (the hilarious opening video introduces his '80s new wave band Pop!) who is now playing the nostalgia circuit, but has maintained enough dignity to turn down an appearance on a "Battle of the '80s Has-Beens" TV reality show. Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore) is a gifted writer with deep inferiority issues who's been hired to water Fletcher's plants, and ends up becoming his emergency fill-in lyricist for a song he needs to deliver to teen queen singer Cora (Haley Bennett) in four days. Despite this contrived "cute meet," the film, to its great credit, deftly avoids many possible rom-com tropes in favor of organic, character-driven conflicts and comic situations. Alex and Sophie fall in love, struggle over their song, and wrestle with their own respective resistance to romantic happiness, while simultaneously coping with the frustrations of the creative process and the demands of the music industry. The two leads (aided by great comic sidekick turns from Brad Garrett and Kristen Johnston) manage to pull all this off with a lightness of touch that makes the characters' vulnerability appealing and not pathetic. The original songs by Adam Schlesinger (the go-to guy for singer-songwriter film music) is charming and catchy.

	Brad Garrett
	Drew Barrymore
	Hugh Grant
	Kristen Johnston
	Adam Schlesinger - Original Music By
	Bruce Berman - Executive Producer
	Jane Musky - Production Designer
	Marc Lawrence - Director
	Marc Lawrence - Writer
	Patricia Woodbridge - Art Director
	Scott Elias - Producer
	Susan E. Morse - Editor
	Xavier Perez Grobet - Cinematographer

USA Today
3 stars out of 4 -- "Hugh Grant's has-been pop star in MUSIC AND LYRICS is the ideal fit for the actor's trademark low-key, self-deprecating wit." 02/16/2007 p.1D

Entertainment Weekly
"MUSIC AND LYRICS includes some great throwback faux music videos." -- Grade: B- 02/23/2007 p.78-79

Sight and Sound
"The couple work well, with Barrymore's more grounded performance enabling Grant, whose role is business as usual, to steal most of the laughs....There is an understated poetry of sorts at work in the film." 04/01/2007 p.72

Film Comment
"Grant and Barrymore's] chemistry and comic repartee evoke the lightheartedness of screwball romantic classics of the Thirties and Forties." 05/01/2007 p.77

Reel.com 7 of 10
"It's a given that most romantic comedies exist in a parallel universe, one that relies on contrivance and coincidence to fulfill its characters' wishes. When done right, it's easy to forgive their far-fetched twists and unlikely attractions and get lost in the fantasy of funny, appealing people falling in love against all odds. Unfortunately, Music and Lyrics is not one of those pictures, but rather an assembly-line rom-com with a setup so artificial it'll test the good will of even the most starry-eyed moviegoers...One final sour note: Kristen Johnston (TV's Third Rock From the Sun), on-hand as Sophie's pushy older sister, is so badly shot she should sue. For someone playing the proprietor of a diet business (rip-snortingly named ""Weight-Not""), she looks positively Amazonian." - Gary Goldstein

ReelViews 8 of 10
"One would be justified in approaching Music and Lyrics with a certain amount of skepticism, considering that its writer/director, Marc Lawrence, is perhaps known for foisting two Miss Congenialitys upon the world (although to be fair, he didn't direct either - he just wrote and produced them). Yet, despite the feeble pedigree, Music and Lyrics turns out to be a better than average romantic comedy where the characters click and, unusual for movies of the genre, there are instances when genuine laughter bubbles up. This may be due largely to Hugh Grant, who understands the concept of comic timing and is able to deliver one liner after one liner in precisely the manner necessary to make them funny...The movie fails to achieve a position in the top echelon of romantic comedies, but it resides high enough in the pecking order to be worth a look by anyone with a penchant for the genre." - James Berardinelli