POWER BALLAD

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Storyline (warning: spoilers)

It’s a familiar story. A pop star produces a new hit single and a little-known musician comes out of nowhere to claim that the song has been stolen from him. So goes the scenario at the centre of Irish director John Carney’s Power Ballad. During his youth in the US, Paul Rudd’s Rick Power nurtured dreams of stardom but love, marriage and fatherhood effected a change of plan and he’s settled for life in Dublin with his Irish wife, Rachel (Marcella Plunkett) and their teenage daughter, Aja (Beth Fallon). He earns his living singing and playing guitar with a wedding band and, in his spare time, writes songs which never get published.
Life changes when American rock star Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas of The Jonas Brothers) turns up among the guests at Rick’s latest gig. Danny is at a career crossroads. He’s trying to reinvent himself after breaking into the business as the star of a boy band and he takes a liking to Rick, treating him to a summary of his worries during an all-night jam session after the wedding.
Rick is still cherishing happy memories of Danny’s words of encouragement when he hears the strains of a song sounding suspiciously like one he performed for him during their jam session. And suddenly it’s everywhere. Danny has the hit he needed to prove that he’s become a grownup and Rick has been given no credit for it.
The film’s second half takes us to Los Angeles, where we’re given some trenchant insights into the brutal realities of the pop music industry, but their absurdities are also part of the picture and Rick gradually gets back in touch with his sense of the ridiculous – which turns out to be the point of the exercise. For it’s not a story about revenge or even compensation. What matters is the courage and confidence to go on creating no matter the setbacks. It’s Carney’s abiding theme, and both Danny and Rick have received some salutary lessons about it by the time he’s finished with them.