by Holly Huffstutler

Created on: April 29, 2009

Music and Lyrics is a musical disguised as a romantic comedy. That's right; Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore have given us a musical.

Not a big musical, crowded with production numbers (though there are a couple of those, come to think of it) but a sweet, quiet, almost old-fashioned musical. It takes place mostly in one room with two people at a piano, trying to write a great new song in two days. It follows standard musical formula of "Boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy sings a song and gets girl back." Basically, MGM would have quite happily produced Music and Lyrics 65 years ago.

To go a little deeper into the plot, Alex Fletcher (Grant) is a has-been singer who makes his living by performing his 80s hits at theme parks and high school reunions for his aging fans. He gets a chance to write a new song for Cora Corman (Haley Bennett) who his manager (Brad Garrett) describes as "bigger that Britney and Christina put together." The catch is that he hasn't written a song since his band "POP" broke up in '94. He enlists the help of Sophie Fischer, his "hypochondriacal" plant waterer who happens to be a "born lyricist"

Half of the movie's value lies in the music (just try to get that song out of your head) But what really makes this movie work is its incredible sweetness. And that is meant in the least patronizing way possible. All the characters show kindness and affection to the other characters. No cruelty is played for cheap laughs in this movie and the only stereotype is the brainless, spiritual' Cora.

Hugh Grant's performance manages to be vulnerable and genuine without slipping back into the self-described "floppy-haired puppy dog" character that he was locked into throughout the 90s.

Drew Barrymore's Sophie is extremely self-conscious due to the cloud of humiliation that has followed her since her unscrupulous former lit professor (Campbell Scott) re-packaged her life as his best-selling book. This anxiety gives the character enough quirks to be very funny, but not so many that she becomes obnoxious. A mark many a flawed romantic comedienne has over-shot.

Haley Bennett plays Cora Corman with eerie calm. Which is a flattering way of saying that the girl has no delivery at all. The one time she breaks from her total lack of expression to exclaim "I just wanna dance!" it's momentarily embarrassing. Thankfully she immediately shifts back into a blank face and monotone voice. The lack of acting on Bennett's part is fine, because she's not there to act. She's there to sing the finished product of the beautiful song that our two leads have toiled away on. And she does so to perfection, in the big finale duet number with Hugh Grant.

The movie was written and directed By Marc Lawrence, who previously directed Grant in Two Weeks Notice. And the songs were written by Adam Schlesinger, who wrote the music for That Thing You Do and is currently a member of Fountains of Wayne and Ivy.

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