Music and Lyrics 2007

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: As dismal and atonal as a dirge. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Light, sweet and agreeably confident Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Drew Barrymore is that rare movie starlet who can handle the comedy end of romantic comedy, but she coasts through her underwritten role as a goofy plant sitter recruited by Grant to write his lyrics. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: It's not a great movie, but for a Valentine's Day date this year, you could do a lot worse. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Grant strikes precisely the right note with regard to Alex's career: He's too intelligent not to be a little embarrassed, but he's far too brazen to feel anything like shame. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: It is what it is, and it is that honorably. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: We're clearly deep into romantic-comedy territory here, so it's a good thing we're also in the hands of excellent guides. Read more

Bill Muller, Arizona Republic: Music and Lyrics will make you want to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: In the end, the movie's just the kind of enjoyably empty-headed fluff it celebrates and mocks. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: When the movie zooms in on their fruit-and-nutcake relationship, it's adorable, too. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: If writer-director Marc Lawrence had stuck with Alex's faded glory, Music and Lyrics could have been terrific. It could have been about something. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Every Valentine's Day should be blessed with a confection as fluffy, light and satisfying as Music and Lyrics, a date movie filled with laughs and tunes and nothing too terribly serious to say. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: As Hugh Grant ages, something is becoming clear: The actor's most compelling attribute is not his floppy forelock but the vein of charming self-loathing that has always been pulsing under his masterfully mussed-up hair. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Music and Lyrics is also given buoyancy by the pitch-perfect songs composed by Adam Schlesinger, the talented pop ironist of the band Fountains of Wayne. Read more

Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: As the suave '40s-style romance Lawrence clearly means it to be, Music and Lyrics is strictly easy listening. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: Music and Lyrics is worth the heartstring tugs if only to see writer-director Marc Lawrence dispense a keen, mildly rueful sense of how that era gets channeled into the present day's mass psyche. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Paper dolls have more depth. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: Grant is as smarmily sarcastic as ever, but Barrymore constantly pulls him back. Despite her record number of bad role choices, she may be the warmest comedy actress around, and you can't help rooting for her. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Too bad director Lawrence tends to hit you over the head with the jokes in his script. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: If Music and Lyrics were a song, you'd have to say it doesn't have a good beat, though it is easy to dance to. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The movie fails to achieve a position in the top echelon of romantic comedies, but it resides high enough in the pecking order to be worth a look by anyone with a penchant for the genre. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: If there's one thing Music and Lyrics understands, it's the apparent effortlessness of a good pop song, the way, particularly on a bad day, it can seem like a gift floating down from the heavens. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: [It] won my heart for what it didn't do: all the moments it could have strained for farce or confessional self-disclosure, and instead turned its attention back to the problem at hand. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Paige Wiser, Chicago Sun-Times: The movie is as disposable as the music in it. But movie theaters need filler, too -- and this is the best kind. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Most of the musical numbers, including the central song, are unexpectedly catchy and believable. Thanks for that goes to songwriter Adam Schlesinger of the band Fountains of Wayne. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: What Grant lacks in credibility as a lover he makes up for in eagerness to please. He wickedly skewers the music of the 1980s -- he sings! he dances! -- while at the same time reminding us of the cruel reality of disposable pop stardom. Read more

Anna Smith, Time Out: A routine romcom. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: This isn't just a chick flick wallowing in moon-spoon-June levels of Hallmark mush; it's the 'Macarena' of cut-rate rom-coms. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Despite dragging in the last third, the movie works as a light and frothy confection for an enjoyable Valentine's Day treat. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: The amusement inherent in watching Hugh Grant play a washed-up '80s boy-band pop star angling for a comeback provides Music and Lyrics with its catchy hook. Read more

Robert Wilonsky, Village Voice: Writer-director Marc Lawrence foists upon his film a rather preposterous meet-cute that renders a promising premise about comebacks and rare second chances predictable and innocuous. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: I don't think the ending is up to the rest of the movie, but Grant and Barrymore are great together, and the movie has both zing and song. Read more