Millennials set marital woes to music in ‘Band Aid’
MOST marital arguments, in the worldview of the couplestherapy dramedy “Band Aid,” consist of refrains so repetitive that they might as well be set to music. That’s the joke — or one of them — in the filmmaking debut of actress Zoe Lister- Jones, who also stars as one half of the millennial Bickersons at the center of this serio-rom- com, for which she also wrote the clever screenplay and (with Kyle Forester) the catchy songs.
Lister- Jones plays Anna, a failed-writer-turned-Uber- driver married to Ben (Adam Pally), a charming schlub who once nurtured dreams of becoming a real artiste but who spends his days designing logos for freelance graphic clients — at least, when he is not playing video games or smoking weed. The two argue constantly — about dirty dishes, sex, and compliments (or the lack thereof) — until one day Anna hits upon an idea: “What if we turned all our fights into songs?”
Sure, why not? As their marriage therapist ( Retta) tells them, they keep having the same fights over and over and over again. Sounds like chorus-verserepeat.
That premise — executed more plausibly than one might expect, given its preposterousness — isn’t really more than a bit of side shtick to a pretty interesting and honest tale about coming to some hard realisations about commitment. In another film, the fight songs might have led to a record contract and fame for the new band (dubbed the Dirty Dishes, naturally), who crank out indie hit after indie hit about the old ball-and- chain, while rejoicing in their newfound connection to each other offstage.
Thankfully, “Band Aid” is not that movie.
Two and one-half stars. Unrated. Contains strong language, drug use, sex and nudity. 94 minutes. — WP-Bloomberg