Power Ballad captures the ‘what if?’ of potential success while balancing the drama out with an honest and realistic portrayal of what it’s like to be a struggling musician.
There’s an emotional honesty in every John Carney movie that feels like it happened to him or someone he knows, warts and all. I don’t know if he ever bonded with a Czech woman while busking in Dublin one day (like in Once) or started a band in high school to impress a girl (like in Sing Street), but it feels real. Power Ballad is in that same register, as it’s about a middle-aged rocker who could’ve been big but is instead left to play cover songs at weddings. Again, I don’t know if Carney was ever in a wedding cover band, but I can certainly believe it if he said he was.
Rick Power (Paul Rudd) has been fronting his wedding cover band, The Bride and the Grooves, for about 15 years now, still dreaming of that elusive big break. The opening sequences are all of the band performing at weddings, but Carney shoots them like large arena gigs, complete with crowd shots, sweeping angles, and energetic rockstar moments. It’s all very exciting, especially when Rick takes any opportunity to perform one of his original power ballads (fittingly).
Despite performing as he would to a sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden, Rick’s joy is short-lived as he’s brought back to brutal reality when the camera circles back to the remnants of a rapidly dissipating wedding crowd. As Rick’s drummer tells him: ‘You’re not a rockstar, you’re a human jukebox.’
Carney may seek refuge within the music world, but he never shies away from the harsh realities of life within it. Power Ballad captures the visceral joyfulness of being in a band, followed by the comedown of having to go back to a tiny house in Dublin until the next wedding gig comes around. At least he has his loving wife (Marcella Punkett) and 14-year-old daughter, Aja (Beth Fallon), to keep him grounded. It’s not a luxurious life, but it’s real and sincere, traits that musicians try oh so hard to attain (or at least pay lip service to).
The movie reaches its highest notes when the expected John Carney meet-cute is subverted with the introduction of boy-band member turned wannabe solo star Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas) at a wedding. Being a close friend of the groom, Danny is asked to perform a song, much to Rick’s chagrin. But as the pair trade vocals on a blistering cover of Stevie Wonder’s I Wish, we witness them go through the full arc of initially mistrusting each other to gradual respect over three masterful minutes of ‘show, don’t tell’. There’s clearly some spark between these two, and it helps that they’re the only two Americans at the event.
Rick and Danny bump into each other again after the wedding and do what musicians do: jam, smoke weed, jam, drink whiskey, and jam some more. Watching the pair bond over each other’s songs is just magical, and it encapsulates why these ‘making-of’ scenes are often the high points in music-centric movies like Michael and Bohemian Rhapsody. These two people may come from opposite sides of the success spectrum, but Power Ballad levels the playing field by letting music be the driving force of their bond.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a struggling wedding singer or trying to break out of the shadow of your boy band, you just want to be heard – and have your music be heard – by someone who gets you. So when Rick discovers that Danny stole one of his songs and turned it into the worldwide smash hit he’s dreamed of, that cherished moment immediately becomes tainted and we (and Rick) are left pondering whether their evening of bonding was all a lie and how many musicians got screwed over in a similar fashion.
Unsurprisingly, Rick starts coming apart at the seams and every aspect of his life begins to suffer. It was his big break, dammit, and it was stolen from him by some wannabe pop star. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but Carney knows it. Rather than shy away, he leans all the way into the story’s tenderness of the story and music’s sappiness until everything feels perfectly okay. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about here.
Power Ballad is just so damn charming that it’s easy to believe the events that unfold are real. Much of that is down to the perfect casting of Rudd as Rick. We know the actor is capable of plucking a guitar and carrying a tune… but only to the level of a wedding singer. I’m glad Rudd is not only allowed to have fun playing (wedding) rockstar, but he gets to showcase what a great dramatic actor he is when given the right material and not some Marvel thing. When Rick is showing Aja a new song he wrote and she reacts indifferently, you can see his spirit deflate with just a few subtle facial moves.
Equally effective is having Jonas as the complete inverse of Rudd/Rick. There are shades of an interesting meta-narrative of Danny’s story running parallel with Jonas’s actual post-boy band career, almost like Power Ballad is what could’ve happened to Jonas in some alternative dimension. Carney is savvy in withholding how much Danny we get while never demonising him or portraying him as overly deceitful. Jonas internalises Danny’s insecurity and ego in a way that a mere eyebrow raise or look is more than enough to know what’s going on in his head. It’s a good thing we get measured doses of Jonas, because it’s difficult to feel too much sympathy for a famous pop star who lives in a mansion and drives around in a Ferrari.
Conflict in Carney’s movies is typically gentle and generally undramatic, but Power Ballad adds some actual personal stakes to the matter at hand. You completely understand why Rick behaves the way he does upon learning what Danny did, but you also understand why Danny stole Rick’s song. Watching them rationalise their actions is fascinating because it strikes that perfect chord of making you think about what you’d do in their respective shoes, and realising that most of the points being made by each person are valid. It doesn’t mean their actions are good by any means, but you get them.
It’s a shame we don’t get more of Rick’s wife, daughter, and bandmates despite playing important roles in his life. The moments we do get are either welcome funny moments (like the band being shown their cramped accommodations for a gig) or little flourishes of emotional honesty (like Rick’s wife telling him to sort out his priorities). It’s tough to juggle too many arcs in a packed movie like this, but it feels like there was potential for the supporting characters to do just a bit more without losing the essence of what Power Ballad is going for.
By the time the ending rolls along and all the emotional and plot threads are tied up, perhaps a little too neatly, the emotional journey was worth it. Nothing feels cheap, and the ending feels well-earned while staying true to the characters whom we’ve gotten to know over the course of 98 brisk minutes.
I don’t know if John Carney ever had a hit song stolen from him, but it ultimately doesn’t matter because Power Ballad is about the ‘what ifs’ of life and living out the version we got as best we can. This movie may not be the smash hit I hope it becomes, but it was made honestly. Most importantly, it will strike a chord with the right (and hopefully sizeable) crowd, something that I suspect Carney will be perfectly okay with.
