‘This film makes it clear that it’s okay to make mistakes and it’s okay to be yourself’
Percy Jackson actress Alexandra Daddario stars in the big screen version of Sophie Kinsella’s hit book Can You Keep A Secret?, about a young woman who tells all her deepest, darkest secrets to a man who turns out to be her boss. By Laura Harding
Drake’s urge to overshare may be his downfall, or his greatest talent. The Canadian don’s latest mixtape is a collection of odds, sods and (as the title suggests) demos.
Framed as an amuse-bouche ahead of his sixth album, due in summer, Dark Lane Demo Tapes’ title is in fact a little misleading. Mostly, it collates recent leaks and discarded tracks.
There are sparks, of course, like on the characteristically downbeat Chicago Freestyle, and Drizzy’s growling collaboration with British drill producer AXL Beats. There’s also the ever-present Toosie Slide, a song made for the Tiktok masses.
Dark Lane Demo Tapes is either a bald stab at a commercial win, or the calling card of an artist unable, or unwilling, to maintain quality control.
5/10 Alex Green
Few would have thought
30 years ago that the singer from Seattle-era also-rans Screaming Trees would become the most interesting figure still standing from the grunge scene.
But Mark Lanegan, after 11 solo albums and collaborations with artists ranging from Soulsavers to Isobel Campbell, and a successful stint in Queens Of The Stone Age, has produced a record to accompany his memoir Sing Backwards And Weep that is his best yet.
Opener I Wouldn’t Want To Say sets the tone, Lanegan urging “get out while you can” over urgent drums and moody synths. Apples From A Tree follows, with gentle acoustic guitar, a simple farewell to a lover, while This Game Of Love is a lovely slow-burner, with Lanegan crooning that he’s going “to lose this game of love” in a duet with his wife Shelley Brien.
Guests on the album include fellow 90s alt rock survivor Greg Dulli, Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones and Peter Hook’s bassist son Jack Bates.
At 15 tracks it is too long, but the combination of Lanegan’s gravelly voice, like gargling with barbed wire, and his explorations of electronica, make it rewarding and compelling.
A triumph of sharply-written R&B and glossy 90s-style production, Kehlani opts for confession and confidence in her latest release. Water is seductive as it submerges you with silky smooth vocals, while another highlight is the sultry Can I, featuring Tory Lanez, just one of the superstar collaborations that help build the 15-track album.
She ends the project with commemorative Lexii’s Outro as a tribute to her friend, the rapper Lexii Alijai, who died earlier this year from a drug overdose.
Kehlani had no fear in showing vulnerability in her 2017 debut Sweetsexysavage, and these emotional currents flow naturally into her sophomore album.
9/10 Emma Bowden
It’s fair to say, at the beginning of the year no one expected a worldwide lockdown.
And at the beginning of May, it’s hard to believe that in just under a week Todrick Hall has produced a pop-driven extravaganza of an EP full of camp colour. Youtube sensation Todrick is most definitely a Diva (with a capital D), and repurposing his hit Nails, Hair, Hips, Heels as Mask, Gloves, Soaps, Scrubs is as concise as can be in explaining what life is like right now.
Mas(k)ot reflects on everything that has been cancelled due to Covid-19 and Meow (featuring Rhea Litre) is an expletive-packed riot cashing in on Joe Exotic.
Not exactly a social commentary, but a fun relevant piece of art for the Tiktok generation.
8/10 Rachel Howdle
Mills has a reputation as a deft electric guitar stylist, but in Mutable Set, his fourth solo release, he unplugs for a more soporific acoustic feel.
The album title, according to Mills, refers to “anything that could change or be lost altogether”.
Cinematic songs like Vanishing Twin might be a Spotify-unfriendly six minutes long, but would be completely in place in a downbeat indie film.
So is it mute-able? Depends whether you like the record’s Icelandic feel. Think Snorri Helgason or a more earthy, homespun Sigur Ros; it’s all about the cavernous soundscape. What grows on you is the husky vocals, like an ASMR Nilsson, particularly on the soothing Money Is The One True God, whose refrain is intoned like an incantation amidst a barrage of piano chords.
6/10 Rachel Farrow
Alexandra Daddario grew up with romantic comedies. She was still a child during the heyday of the classic rom-com, the ones starring Julia Roberts, Meg Ryan and Sandra Bullock.
“I loved Notting Hill, Never Been Kissed, the teen movies of the 90s,” she remembers. “Pretty Woman, When Harry Met Sally, the dynamic quality of those films.
“Love is not a perfect line, life gets involved and all these films have that, what is holding them apart when they are really in love?
“I think that is very relatable and very romantic.”
Daddario is now 34 and best known for her role as Annabeth Chase in the Percy Jackson film series, as well as her turns in San Andreas and the recent Baywatch re-boot, and was beyond excited when she got a chance to star in a rom-com of her own.
Based on the 2003 novel by British author Sophie Kinsella, who also penned Confessions Of A Shopaholic, Can You Keep A Secret? stars Daddario as Emma Corrigan, a young woman stuck in a dead-end job as a marketing manager at an organic food company, and languishing in a dreary relationship with a boyfriend who never wears trousers.
Things take a turn when she is knocking back the drinks on a flight back to New York after a disastrous business trip and some terrifying turbulence convinces her the plane is about to crash.
She ends up spilling all her deepest, darkest secrets to the stranger next to her, thinking the end is imminent, only to find they have landed safely and the handsome man (played by Teen Wolf star Tyler Hoechlin) sitting next to her is actually the CEO of her company.
If you’ve ever seen a rom-com, you might have a vague idea of what happens next. “I hadn’t read the book before so when I read the script and I really loved it and I thought it had so much heart,” Daddario says.
“We tried to update it by bringing in more of what it’s like to be a woman now.
“We wanted to deal with modernising the workplace environment for a woman, and having a relationship with someone who owns the company and what that means.
“We really had long discussions about what that would be like and what kind of pressure that would put on both of the people, while also maintaining the focus on the fact it’s a beautiful relationship between these two people and also what it’s like to grow up and what it’s like to not understand yourself and try to come into your own.”
Indeed that element felt particularly resonant to Daddario.
She says: “Being women, and I’m sure men feel this way too, we can be a combination of extreme confidence and extreme insecurity at the same time.
“Emma is sort of coming of age, she’s not 30 yet but almost 30 and she’s still working through this and that and I really tried to make that clear, that you can be yourself and be insecure.
“You’re still on your way and that is all learning, you’re not going to come out of the first thing knowing exactly what you’re doing in every situation, you have to grow up and make mistakes in order to figure it out.”
In fact some elements of the over-sharing felt painfully familiar to her.
“Oh sure,” she says with a laugh. “I can relate to embarrassing myself for sure.
“She doesn’t mean badly, but she gets drunk on a plane and she tells all of her secrets to a handsome stranger sitting next to her who turns out to be the CEO of her company, and he comes into the office and she’s just incredibly embarrassed.
“It would just be an embarrassing situation she can walk away from, but this is something she is confronted with every day, so I certainly can relate to that.
“I think we all have had too much wine and sent the wrong email or said the wrong thing to
Loving life: Alexandra Daddario as Emma Corrigan in Can You Keep a Secret? Below, with her co-star Tyler Hoechlin as Jack Harper
someone and we’ve all humiliated ourselves from time to time, and the idea is that it’s okay to make mistakes and it’s okay to be yourself and ultimately the other person doesn’t think about it in the same way that you do.”
Romantic comedies had been something of an abandoned genre in recent years, but the success of Crazy Rich Asians and Netflix hits such as To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before and Set It Up, heralded a resurgence in the art form after years in the wilderness.
“I think what happened in the 90s and the early 2000s is we had incredible rom-coms that people love and still watch to this day, but I think maybe they became too formulaic and it became negative.
“It’s not the genre that is bad. Formulaic films are okay, they work really well if you enjoy them, but you can’t have them all be formulaic because then people get tired of them.”
But now Daddario is hoping that the comforting embrace of a romantic comedy will provide some relief to viewers stuck at home.
“I think it is escapism. It depends how you’re feeling and what you’re looking for, but I know I want to watch something funny and romantic.
“What I love about what I do is I have the opportunity to entertain people and to make them feel, and I think we are all looking to feel and laugh and that is what this film does and that was our goal.
“We really tried to find heart and humour and I think if you’re looking for that right now, and you need a little break, and are looking for a funny heartfelt movie with Tyler shirtless and us making out from time to time, not to give away parts of the film, then this is the film for you.”
Can You Keep A Secret? is available for digital download now