SONG ONE: THE POWER OF MUSIC

Many actors and actresses trade off big movies for small in their careers. The bigger movies make them money they can live on while the smaller ones give them the chance to be more creative and stretch their abilities. In the end fans can enjoy both types of films and the artists can work on their craft. Anne Hathaway seems to be taking this on for her career. Having made LES MISERABLE and increasing her fame, she now can be seen in the smaller film SONG ONE.

The movie opens with a young street musician name Henry playing in the subway. While walking home he fails to notice where he’s walking and is hit by a car. We’re then whisked away to Africa where Franny (Hathaway) is working on her PHD as an anthropologist. She receives a phone call from her mother (Mary Steenburgen) and is soon on her way home to sit alongside her, waiting for Henry to come out of the coma he is now in, if at all.

Having left on bad terms with Henry and not speaking to him for months, Frannie looks through his things in his room trying to piece together who her brother was and what he had become. She always felt that his career choice was simple and shallow and beneath him. Now as she reads through the book of notes he took with him everywhere, she follows his footsteps through the city of New York capturing the sounds that he listened to and visiting the music spots where he was developing his craft in the indie music scene.

Among the many things she finds her brother fond of she discovers his adulation of a performer named James Forester (Johnny Flynn). His room is not only covered with posters for the performer but in the middle of the book of notes is a ticket to his next performance that night. Frannie takes the ticket and heads out to hear this man and to find out what held her brother’s interest in him.

As she listens to his words and music, Frannie discovers that James offers a solid base in folk music that she never understood before. She meets with him after the show and tells him about her brother’s condition. Where most movies would take this moment to have the two main characters fall madly in love this movie instead lets that develop slowly at a more natural pace. James comes to visit Frannie and Henry in the hospital though Henry remains in his coma. James and Frannie slowly strike up a friendship and he goes with her on the journey through the pages of Henry’s book, knowing some of the locations well.

As days pass the pair grow fond of one another and, as I said, slowly begin to find themselves attracted towards one another. James finds himself drawn to a woman in need and her family, Frannie finds a link to her brother that continues to provide her hope he will recover. While she may not realize it, Frannie is also discovering another world just outside of her doorstep using the same technics she would employ as an anthropologist looking into other cultures. It keeps her busy while she helps with her mother, waits on her brother and slowly finds herself drawn to a man she never knew before in James.

The movie works well in the structure it uses relying less on the spoken word and more on those sung. With each location Frannie visits she is exposed to various musicians singing songs and carrying on a long tradition of telling stories through them. The best part is that here the songs aren’t all written to move the story forward but as their own songs and stories. A bad movie would have made each song relate to what was happening next to Frannie or Henry, but here they are just songs that each different performer has created. The same hold true with the songs that James performs.

The pacing of the film is slow and steady, never rushing anything and letting the plot develop at a more natural flow than most movies would allow. And by the end everything isn’t tied up in a nice, neat bow either, giving it a more realistic approach that is both realistic and satisfying at the same time. The performances are all low key and each actor makes their character as believable as possible. When put together this results in a movie that holds your interest, entertains and enlightens all at the same time.

While SONG ONE is a smaller movie than many being released these days it does what a good movie should do. It allows you to feel emotions in different ways. It tells a story that holds your interest. And it captures your attention for 86 minutes. What more could you ask for in a movie?

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