A mix-tape of ideas from better movies

The Greatest Hits (M, 95 mins) Directed by Ned Benson Reviewed by James Croot **½

Harriet (Modern Love’s Lucy Boynton) felt like she lost herself when she lost Max (Pearl’s David Corenswet). Two years after he was killed in a car crash that left her in a coma for a week, she’s still struggling to come to terms with his absence.

It doesn’t help that everytime she hears one of “their songs”, Harriet is literally, albeit temporarily, transported back to the moment she first listened to it with him.

Attempts to use this to change the events of that fateful day have proved fruitless so far, so Harriet now tries to control this “gift” by using noise-cancelling headphones, a curated playlist and taking a job in a library to filter out any potentially unwanted “excursions”.

However, it’s not only not foolproof, it’s also preventing her from moving on with her life, much to the chagrin of best friend Morris (Austin Crute). Accusing Harriet of “making a conscious choice to hide out in your grief”, he laments that she “could have been the next Alan Parsons”.

That’s one of the problems of writerdirector Ned Benson’s (The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, Black Widow) romantic fantasy – it feels like it’s trying hard to be both hip and extremely egalitarian and eclectic in its musical tastes.

When not constantly talking about their feelings, the characters are swapping opinions on shoegaze and yacht rock.

Nelly Furtado and Roxy Music cameo, while one of the latter’s live recordings plays a key part in the story’s central romance.

While a soundtrack that includes Lana Del Rey, Peggy Lee and a haunting Phoebe Bridgers cover of The Cure’s Friday I’m in Love is not to be sniffed at, neither it nor a sweet turn from Justin H. Min (Shortcomings) as newly orphaned antiques business owner David can’t lift this maudlin mumblecore drama out of its seemingly perpetual fugue.

Despite its pretentions – and promise – Greatest Hits is less a thematically coherent album of a lost relationship and more a mix-tape of ideas from better movies on the topic, like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, About Time, Press Play, (500) Days of Summer, The Time Traveler’s Wife and Somewhere in Time. The Greatest Hits is streaming on Disney+.