Back to the Future-esque tale celebrates the power of love (and music)
Among the rows of vinyl and the occasional compact disc, there’s a wall dedicated to mixtapes at Hawaiian record store Lost & Found.
Owner Cooper (Danny Glover) started it when people dropping off their cassette collections would absent-mindedly forget to take out those curated playlists.
As something of a sentimental fella, he decided that, rather than throw them out, he would place them where perhaps one day they might be reunited with their owner.
Employee Harrison (Lewis Pullman) loves to regale customers with the story and it instantly captivates Laura (Clara Rugaard).
Her best friend Chloe (Lyrica Okano) has been attempting to set her up with him, her step-brother, for ages but now she sees the appeal of his relaxed charm.
There’s a sticking point though. He’s evasive in his enthusiasm for her favourite band – Japanese Breakfast.
So, she makes him a deal. She’ll only give him her number if he agrees to take her to their concert the next week. Pretty soon, he’s wearing the alternative-pop-ers’ T-shirt.
As the pair become inseparable, Laura’s only worry is that she might be preventing him from achieving his full potential.
Through his parents she discovers that he has a place at medical school on the other side of the country, and even his assurances that he won’t go – and that he’s happy with that decision – don’t assuage her concerns.
But that’s when fate intervenes the morning after his birthday, sending her into a tailspin that it will take her years to recover from. Increasingly disconnected from those around her, when Cooper gives her the long-forgotten mixtape Harrison had made for her the memories come flooding back and, somewhat unnervingly, for three to four minutes at a time, she feels literally like she’s being transported back to happier moments.
Yes, director and co-writer Greg Bjorkman’s undemanding, charming little romantic-drama (developed from a story idea by his The Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone) is very much about the emotive and transcending power of music.
Sure, the characters are thinly sketched, the narrative doesn’t naturally flow and everything feels a little too episodic as the story unspools, but there’s something endearing and engrossing about this hybrid of The Butterfly Effect, Final Destination, Back to the Future and Somewhere in Time.
Much of its charm comes from its leads. Pullman (most recently seen in Top Gun: Maverick) definitely has his dad Bill’s looks and on-screen charisma, and Danish actor Rugaard (currently starring in Neon series The Rising) is a revelation as the seemingly constantly fraught Laura.
She sells the sometimes hokey, somewhat predictable narrative twists and turns, adding gravitas to a tale that occasionally all feels a little too glib about its high stakes.
A so-hip-it-hurts soundtrack also delivers the requisite ‘‘feels’’, and the occasional well-chosen oneliner ensures things never get too maudlin.
‘‘Wait, are you from the hoverboard future? Or buried statue of liberty future?’’ Harrison rather mockingly – and delightfully – inquires when Laura first tries to explain her apparent ‘‘Cassandra Complex’’ to him.