From the multiplex to Spotify

FILM REVIEW

Hearts Beat Loud Let us consider Nick Offerman. The 47-year-old, who I swear was born bearded, could voice a bear in an animated movie, and you wouldn’t even have to cartoonify him; just drop him in. His signature move, a furrowed brow that suggests pained annoyance at the entirety of the cosmos, should be written into every part he plays.

He stars in Hearts Beat Loud as Frank Fisher, one of those great movie dads, right up there with Stanley Tucci in Easy A and Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird. His daughter, Sam (Kiersey Clemons), is heading off to med school in the fall, giving the single father a serious case of impending empty nest syndrome.

Restless and anxious, he decides he’s going to close the Brooklyn record store he’s been running for the past 17 years. But he also convinces Sam to jam with him, and darned if the musical father/daughter team doesn’t produce something wonderful.

It’s a little unlikely, but director and co-writer Brett Haley makes the story as smooth and infectious as the originals songs by singersongwriter Keegan DeWitt that anchor the film’s soundtrack. And he’s played before with themes of music-and-romance (2015’s I’ll See You in My Dreams) and fathers-and-daughters; see 2017’s The Hero, which starred Sam Elliott and had a bit part for Offerman.

The romance in Hearts Beat Loud is twofold, as Sam struggles with moving away from New York and her artist girlfriend Rose (Sasha Lane), while Frank finds himself falling for Leslie (Toni Collette), the sympathetic landlady of his record store. Ted Danson pops up as Frank’s bartender-cum-therapist, while Blythe Danner plays Frank’s mom in an underwritten subplot.

The movie premièred at Sundance and has been an audience favourite at festivals, no doubt thanks to a toe-tapping finale. Clemons, a singer whose film resumé includes The Only Living Boy in New York and an upcoming, untitled superhero movie about the Flash, handles both the emotional and musical beats nicely. And Offerman, if I haven’t been clear enough, can do anything.

Haley clearly has a love of music to rival that of his day job, and Hearts Beat Loud includes shout-outs to altrockers Wilco, blues legend Tom Waits, and Baltimore pop band Animal Collective, among others. It’s a movie that will carry viewers directly from the multiplex to Spotify. ★★★★

Hearts Beat Loud opens June 22 in Toronto; June 29 in Montreal; July 6 in Elora and Ottawa; and July 20 in Picton.