If I want original I will so somewhere else, look somewhere other than the "romantic comedy" genre. Part of why I liked Music and Lyrics is the fact that it is so predictable. the genre has a rhythm. Meeting then growing attraction then signs of death, then break up, then the great climactic reconnection. The pattern of the story is just a canvas, however, just like the death of the bad guy at the end of an action movie. How the bad guy dies, and how bad he is is the real art, just like in a Hugh Grant movie, variations in how charming, how funny, how much he can avoid annoying you, are the tools of self-expression.

The movie itself, is about two strangers writing a pop-song, and it's funny if you get the references, if you know who Wham or A-ha or Duran Duran were. Barrymore is, as she always is, winning and sweet and vulnerable to the point where you wish that people like that existed in real life and that you knew them and they liked you. Grant has a very definite sense of humor, I always knew it, even when he was annoying me and in this movie, beset by age, he shows it more than in any film before. They sold me the story, and I liked it.

Music & Lyrics

Hugh Grant ... Alex Fletcher
Drew Barrymore ... Sophie Fisher
Brad Garrett ... Chris Riley
Kristen Johnston ... Rhonda Fisher
Campbell Scott ... Sloan Cates
Scott Porter ... Colin Thompson


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