The name of the film is Power Ballad; the name of its lead character is Rick Power. Is there anything else you really need to know about this picture? American singer/songwriter Rick (Paul Rudd) is slumming it as the lead singer for an up-market Irish wedding band having married and settled down in Dublin. He’s content with his lot, but harbours festering resentments about his glory days in a real band writing real songs that actually mean something.
While rolling out the hits at a swish country wedding reception, Rick connects with one of the surprise guests, ex-boy band sensation Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas), who is using this sojourn out of LA to noodle around with his remote recording studio and whisk up some new material. Much single malt is imbibed, and before too long, Rick is plucking out his unfinished hit, ‘How to Write a Song (Without You)’, complaining that he just doesn’t know how to wrap it up. Danny is paying attention, and when the two amiably head their separate ways, Rick suddenly hears his own song being played back to him – by Danny.
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John Carney’s likeable comedy on the theme of creativity and ownership toys with questions about intellectual property and how good, personal art naturally belongs to a single owner, as Rick finds himself in a bit of a bind when he’s unable to find any evidence that the song – which has become a global hit – was his. The light comic tone of the first half gives way to aspects of existential doom as our hero sees this blatant theft as a sign that life is nothing more than a meaningless nightmare of suffering. His doting family try their best to assuage his anger, yet the naturally goofy Rudd struggles to sell despair.
The film works because the earworm at is core is exactly the type of slushy ballad that you would imagine would capture the public imagination, yet it all hinges on Danny’s character being completely unscrupulous despite the fact that he’s introduced as a sound and reasonable guy. Yet in a world where all original ideas seem to get automatically sluiced into the public domain and ripped off, there’s a lot here that makes sense – until an extremely cop-out ending which seems to suggest that as long as we have the receipts for our creative endeavours, all will be well in the end.