Lionsgate’s Power Ballad is a tremendous film because it taps into the fickleness of fame and the bitterness of a dream deferred.
I interviewed director John Carney, who is a maestro at melding melancholy musicians into cinematic stories. He’s directed Once (2007), Begin Again (2013), and Flora and Son (2023).
In his latest film, Power Ballad, which played at SXSW, Paul Rudd plays a burned-out former rocker fronting a wedding band who, during a chance meeting, encounters Nick Jonas, who is everything he wishes he was. Jonas’ character lived out Rudd’s character’s dream of playing at Madison Square Garden and becoming a top musician.
However, Jonas has never really been taken seriously. And now, years later, he’s struggling to find a hit.
Carney shared:
“Are you going to see the absurd nature of hanging on to this dream, or are you going to adapt and change and become cool again…”
And Rudd and Jonas both meet at this moment, when they are both hanging onto the dream. And this dual vulnerability leads to a shared and powerful moment: their creation of a beautiful song.
Jonas remarks:
“That’s the best I’ve felt in years.”
What follows is the slow disintegration of one and the massive acceleration of fame for the other.
This twin ballad of the two makes the film propulsive and profound as we see one of their rises and the other's extreme suffering. And their eventual intersection makes it symphonic.
Here’s the trailer:
Releasing everywhere June 5th.
