THE HIGH NOTE ★★★
(Cert 12, 113mins. Available from today on all major platforms)
DAKOTA JOHNSON is a dogsbody with a dream in this frothy drama set in the Los Angeles music industry.
She plays Maggie, the music-mad personal assistant to a 90s soul legend called Grace Davis (Tracee Ellis Ross, daughter of Motown legend Diana).
Unbeknown to the demanding diva, Maggie is secretly learning to twiddle knobs in the studio and is hatching a plan to become a music producer. If you’ve seen director Nisha Ganatra’s previous film, you will know what to expect.
In 2018’s Late Night, Emma Thompson played a veteran chat show host who was mean to her young scriptwriter Mindy Kaling. After a romantic subplot petered out and the two women fell out, they were reunited in sisterhood as the young woman helped her spiky mentor beat the sexist industry bosses and reinvent herself.
The High Note retools the same plot for a more glamorous setting and swaps the jokes with songs.
Grace knows how hard it is for a singer in her 40s to score a hit album and her shouty manager Jack (Ice Cube) urges her to take a money-spinning residency in a Las Vegas casino.
But Maggie thinks Grace could top the charts with new material if she’s let loose in the studio.
“If you want to be a producer, you find your own goddamn clients and stay out of mine!” bawls Jack when he learns about
her plans. So Maggie turns her attention to a young and unfathomably rich singersongwriter called David (Kelvin Harrison Jr) whom she meets in a record store. Maggie manages to keep their relationship professional and – by pretending to be an established producer – she persuades David to let her record his demo.
“Brian Epstein did not sleep with The Beatles,” says Maggie, as sparks fly and the line between personal and professional begins to blur.
The soundtrack is decent and Johnson and Ross work well together in familiar roles.
It’s consistently entertaining if a little lacking in soul.
If this were a record, I’d file it under “Easy Listening”.