Pod Insights Pop Culture Happy Hour Power Ballad About this episode In the wonderful new film Power Ballad, Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas play two musicians whose careers haven’t exactly gone to plan – but one song may change that. Rick (Rudd) is a wedding band singer in Ireland and Danny (Jonas) is a former boy band member. They collaborate on a song that Rick wrote a few years ago, but Rick later finds out that Danny is trying to pass off the song as his own. Power Ballad was directed by John Carney, who also made Sing Street and Once.
If you like movies with great songs, check out these episodes:
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This message comes from Data IQ Agent Management. Most enterprises can't count their AI agents, let alone manage them. Data IQ Agent Management lets you do both from a single view. Visit dataiq.com to learn more.
0:19 Stephen Thompson? The director John Carney makes movies about music, from the thrill of performing it to the collaborations and chemistry that go into creating it. His filmography includes Sing Street and Once, which won an Oscar for Best Original Song.
0:34 Linda Holmes? Carney's new movie is Power Ballad, which stars Paul Rudd as a wedding singer and Nick Jonas as a pop star whose career gets an unlikely boost. And I'm just going to say upfront that I love this movie. I'm Linda Holmes.
0:48 Stephen Thompson? And I'm Stephen Thompson. Today, we are talking about Power Ballad on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.
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2:24 Stephen Thompson? Joining us today is culture critic Kristin Meinz. Hey, Kristin.
2:27 Speaker 04 Hi, guys. How are you?
2:28 Stephen Thompson? Doing great. Glad to have you here. So Power Ballad stars Paul Rudd as Rick Power, the frontman of an Irish wedding band called The Bride and Groove. Rick once had a record deal, but his career never took off. And his life took a different turn when he fell in love with a woman in Ireland and started a family with her there. While performing at a wedding, Rick meets an American pop star named Danny Wilson. He's played by Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers. Danny used to be in a boy band, and his career seems to be on the downswing. After the wedding, he and Rick meet, bond, hang out, get drunk, and work on a few songs together. And along the way, Rick plays Danny a song he'd written years earlier called "How to Write a Song Without You."
3:14 Speaker 06 She keep the "How to Write a Song" going every time. (singing) "Write a song without you.
3:23 Speaker 06 Cause every song I ever wrote in my life is about you."
3:31 Stephen Thompson? They part ways on joyous terms, and Rick goes about his life until one day he hears "How to Write a Song Without You" and learns that the song has reignited Danny's career. It's everywhere, and Danny's everywhere, but Rick has been denied creative credit and songwriting royalties. Worst of all, Rick has no proof that it was ever his song. Power Ballad is in theaters now. Lynda, I'm gonna start with you. We kinda teased it up front. What did you think of this movie?
4:01 Linda Holmes? Yeah, I've been referring to this as the most Lynda-coded movie of the year. And I think, you know, it's love of music, the presence of Paul Rudd, who's one of my favorite actors. There are a bunch of things about this that make it really very much for me. But I really think the more I have thought about and sat with this film, the more I feel like I have understood what it is about. Cause one thing that's interesting, you know, you talked in the intro about Carney having made these really great- Films about creative collaboration and understanding between musicians. And this, of course, is really an example of that kind of turning bad, right? For Rick, in the sense that this night that he spends jamming with Danny becomes this nightmare. So it's kind of interesting to think, so why is John Carney making a movie that is about
4:46 Linda Holmes? credit and money and the pain of not getting credit and money when his whole thing has always been the joy and the beauty of creating something wonderful, right? For its own sake. And what I have come away with about this is that I think this is a very good film about how important it is to creative people, to artists, to make something good and how hard it is to convince yourself that you have made something good. Because so many of the indicators of having made something good, whether it's sales or reviews or public sentiment are so unreliable.
5:26 Linda Holmes? And so there's this tantalizing sense that maybe Rick has a chance to learn for good, that he has made something good, he has made a good song, and he's being denied that feedback loop of you have done well, you have created something beautiful. And he's trying to figure out how to live with that experience. But I think it's a movie about wanting to make beautiful things in a very personal way. And in that sense, and we can talk more about this later or not, I think it's an anti-AI movie, maybe accidentally.
6:03 Stephen Thompson? I think all good things are inadvertently anti-AI.
6:06 Linda Holmes? But here's the thing, I think it's a film about the fact that what gives something life as a piece of art is that someone loved it and cared about it. And that theme comes up in this film a couple of times. And in that sense, I think it's an anti-AI movie. So I both greatly enjoyed this movie, but I also think it has a bunch of really interesting things to say.
6:26 Stephen Thompson? Nice. So you are, you are pro powerball.
6:29 Linda Holmes? I really loved it. I did.
6:33 Stephen Thompson? Holmesy, I got to sit next to you watching this film and Feeling your love made me love it that much more. We'll get to my thoughts in a second. Kristin, I'm dying to hear, what did you think of the movie?
6:42 Speaker 07 Well, first of all, I gotta say, Linda, I think you and I saw two different movies because even though I am also pro power ballad, to me, it wasn't about art becoming art because people love it. To me, it was about the journey of art being beautiful and good on its own. And it doesn't have to be in a stadium for it to matter.
7:06 Linda Holmes? Oh, I think that's true, too.
7:07 Speaker 07 Because I feel like that's what the whole thing is like Paul Rudd. All he wants is to be playing Madison Square Garden. And to me, that's not a worthy goal. That doesn't make me want to cheer for him. What makes me want to cheer for him is I want him to get the credit that he justly deserves. And I want him to appreciate what he has. And to me, that's really what the story is about. And the same thing with Nick Jonas's character about being able to appreciate what he has, including his limitations, and give credit to those who maybe can help him do better. But that journey, to me, made the movie interesting because I think oftentimes, movies about music are about that fame, about that recognition.
7:47 Speaker 07 Or on the flip side, it's worthy, even though I live in a rat-infested one-room studio with eight other roommates and so on. And this kind of talks about both sides of those things, right? So I really appreciate that. But I also want to say, I really, in particular, enjoyed Nick Jonas in this movie. I never thought I would be a Nick Jonas stan like I was watching this. I thought, my God, I can see why he's a platinum music artist. I can see the charisma. I can see the talent. He is perfectly cast as the boy band guy going solo in this movie. And I can see why everybody's going wild and wanting to throw their underpants at him. He's fantastic in this movie. And he and Paul Rudd play off of each other so well. I just loved how they played off of each other.
8:31 Speaker 07 The only minor criticism I have in this is I wish the two female romantic partners were just a little tiny more developed, like Nick Jonas's girlfriend Marshall. I wish there was more to her than what was there. And I wish that Paul Rudd's wife was more than the perfect wife because she is 100% perfect all the time and does always the right thing. So I kind of wish that there was just a little bit more to each of those characters. Didn't have to be like an extra 20 minutes added to the movie, maybe just like an extra like one or two minutes with each of them, I think would have done wonders for their characters, even though I know the movie's not really about those characters.
9:06 Linda Holmes? It's interesting because when we came out of the movie, one of the things I said to Stephen was that Danny's girlfriend, who is played by Havana Rose Lou, who's a really good actor, who's also in Tooner, a movie that's out right now that I really like. She's done some other stuff, is really barely in the movie. She, I would say, has kind of one scene and it's hard for me to imagine that that was the original vision of this character. I can't imagine there wasn't more in it about her originally and it, you know, presumably got edited for whatever reason.
9:36 Stephen Thompson? Yeah, I agree almost entirely with everything both of you have said, but I'm surprised we've kind of gotten as far into this conversation as we have without talking about what, for me, is the central thing that works so beautifully about this film and a thing that if it didn't work as beautifully as it does, the film falls apart, which is the central song.
9:54 Speaker 07 Yes.
9:55 Stephen Thompson? The song at the center of this movie, How to Write a Song Without You, which as we see in the film, it was originally kind of written by the Rick character, but it's not 100% complete and Danny kind of comes in, you know, you get all this collaboration around this song, but then we see the song become the catalyzing source of conflict in the film, in part because it has become this gigantic, massive pop hit. And if this song does not work brilliantly as a perfectly plausible comeback hit for a former boy band star, the movie falls apart and the song works beautifully.
10:53 Stephen Thompson? If this is not at the center of the conversation for best original song at next year's Oscars, there is something wrong because this song does everything it is supposed to accomplish. You hum this song not only as you're walking out of the theater, but you hum this song for days after seeing this movie. You totally understand how this song becomes a staple at weddings. You understand how people are holding their phones aloft at concerts to simulate lighters. Like it pulls off everything it's supposed to accomplish. And I think that is so important. The fact that John Carney not only makes movies about
11:34 Stephen Thompson? music, but makes movies about music from the perspective of someone who understands it is so, so important and has been such a key to why he has so effectively made so many good movies about music. I loved this movie and I share with Linda a general love and appreciation of Paul Rudd and just the vibes that he brings to everything he does. And I share Kristen's appreciation of Nick Jonas and what he brings to this film. Obviously, this film is going to mirror some of Nick Jonas's own career beats.
12:09 Linda Holmes? Maybe Danny should become an actor.
12:11 Stephen Thompson? He does a really terrific job and you understand how part of what can make collaboration alchemical is when two collaborators not only have compatible strengths, but when they have compatible weaknesses that the other person is there to address. Danny's character, he is a great pop singer. When he sings alongside Paul Rudd at the beginning of this movie, you understand why he is head and shoulders more charismatic, a stronger singer, why he would be a pop star and Paul Rudd isn't. But when they're collaborating as songwriters, you understand that Paul Rudd's character has instincts.
12:57 Stephen Thompson? That Danny's character doesn't necessarily have. These two guys need each other for this song to take off the way that it does. And I love the way this movie understands that and gives these characters room to have these strengths and weaknesses and how that forms a central conflict that is extremely understandable without you viewing either of these guys as monsters or villains.
13:23 Linda Holmes? Yeah, Danny's not a villain. He's done something really bad, right? He's done something that I think most creative people would consider really bad. But he's not a villain. You can understand how he got there.
13:32 Speaker 07 But he also does feel some remorse, too. He's not just like
13:35 Linda Holmes? He does.
13:36 Speaker 07 Just the supervillain who's like, but it's mine now.
13:38 Linda Holmes? Right, exactly.
13:39 Speaker 07 He questions himself and he questions himself artistically. He questions himself as what kind of person am I? And I think that both of the characters do that throughout the movie where they're not just 100% like I'm on the right side of things. There are moments where they're like, am I being motivated by the wrong thing here? Maybe I just want to be noticed or, you know, in their own way. And one thing to go back to what you were saying, Stephen, about the song. I've got to give it to John Carney and Gary Clark, who wrote this song, for making a song that I didn't get sick of, which wasn't the case with Once.
14:14 Stephen Thompson? Oh, my gosh, Kristen, you, what is this blasphemy?
14:18 Speaker 07 I'm sorry, but I was like, please, may I never hear this song again for the rest of my life? Help me.
14:23 Linda Holmes? Oh, Kristen and Stephen are gonna have a fistfight over the internet.
14:26 Stephen Thompson? Kristen, these are fighting words. That is one of my favorite songs of all time.
14:32 Speaker 07 Okay, but How to Write a Song Without You, they did such a good job. This song is performed in such a variety of ways in this movie, which really made me feel like I couldn't get sick of it if I'm going to hear this version as a duet and this version in Madison Square Garden. And the fact that we hear it in so many different ways, I think, changes the song and yet still sticks with us. And the other thing the song does, not in a Netflix dating show way, but it reflects the story back at us, what the lyrics in the song are saying.
15:05 Linda Holmes? Sure, of course.
15:07 Speaker 07 It still reflects the story without telling the story.
15:09 Linda Holmes? Yeah, you know, I, I think when you talk about the song, I would compare this to two songs that were written by Adam Schlesinger, who died a few years ago from COVID and who was in Fountains of Wayne and also became a great songwriter for television and film, wrote a lot for Crazy Ex Girlfriend and a lot of other things. But he wrote That Thing You Do.
15:31 Speaker 07 So good, so good.
15:32 Linda Holmes? Which is a brilliant song that I still.
15:35 Stephen Thompson? One of the best movie songs ever.
15:37 Speaker 07 So believable as a hit, so believable.
15:39 Linda Holmes? That I still listen to, but also a less well-known song, which is called Way Back Into Love from Music and Lyrics.
15:46 Speaker 07 Yes. Oh, my God, I'm so glad you brought that up, Linda. I was thinking about that movie, watching this one.
15:50 Linda Holmes? And those are both Adam Schlesinger songs.
15:52 Speaker 07 Yes.
15:53 Linda Holmes? In both of those cases, the film needs the song to be, I mean, it has to be a good enough song that you have, that you want to listen to it, right? But it also has to be a song that essentially, like an actor, is well cast. It has to be a song that can play the role in the film that it's supposed to play.
16:10 Stephen Thompson? Yes.
16:11 Linda Holmes? I have a friend who's a music critic, my friend Mark Hirsch, who I played this song, How to Write a Song Without You, for him. And I said, I think this is a plausible hit. What do you think? And he said, yes, but more like a hit from the 2010s and the 2020s, which I thought was so interesting because the backstory of the song will tell you it was not written just recently. This is a song that Paul Rudd has been working on, that Rick has been working on for a long time. So yes, it's more of a pop song of the 2010s. That makes sense.
16:47 Speaker 07 Yes.
16:47 Stephen Thompson? Right. I mean, it's slightly Jonas Brothers coded.
16:50 Linda Holmes? Yeah.
16:50 Stephen Thompson? It's slightly OneRepublic coded. It does sound like a blockbuster hit in 2015. And I think that is an absolutely apt reading of that song and part of, I think, why it works so well. The other thing I wanted to get at about this movie that I think it captures so beautifully, the way the best movies about music do is I really think this movie gives us several different perspectives on what live performance feels like.
17:17 Stephen Thompson? And what live performance by a really good wedding band feels like versus what really good live performance in a stadium feels like and what the strengths and limitations of each of those experiences are, how you can be performing in a stadium and get massive torrents of feedback, but have it still feel alienating, how you can be in a room full of sweaty people who are like really feeling what you're doing, but also if you play kind of one wrong song or one wrong note, like kind of all the energy drops out of the room. This film to me really understood live performance.
17:56 Speaker 07 What's really interesting is because of the hit song at the center of this being what everybody wants to hear, we also see how people react when the songs are mediocre, which I think is great because let's be real, some of the music that is presented that is Nick Jonas's character's music when he's not collaborating with Paul Rudd or Paul Rudd's music when he's not collaborating with Nick Jonas, it's so perfectly written as mediocre music.
18:21 Linda Holmes? And I don't think, one of the things I really admire about the way they approach Rick and his character and what his talents are, is I don't think there's any suggestion here that he is somebody who, you know, is gonna go off and write a string of 25 great pop hits. I think you can watch this movie and think this is his great song, right? And it's so important to him to be able to have, ownership is a weird word, but like to be able to have connection publicly and-
18:54 Stephen Thompson? To have an artistic legacy.
18:56 Linda Holmes? And to be able to say, I wrote that song. And to be able to tell his wife and his daughter, I wrote that song. And I very much like the fact, Stephen and I talked about this too, I very much like the fact, there's a moment early on when Paul Rudd with the wedding band wants to play some of his original songs, not this one, but some of his original songs. And one of his bandmates is sort of like, listen, people at weddings don't want to hear your original songs. You are, he says, a human jukebox. They want to hear songs they know that's- What weddings are for. And it kind of can sound cynical like I half expected at some point in this movie for it to be like, no, you should play your original songs at a
19:38 Linda Holmes? weddings and and put them out there for people because what really matters is your creativity. But this movie never attempts to tell you that that wedding band guy is wrong about what you should play at weddings because it lives in a reality of what it is to be a working musician, which is that this setting may call for one thing and this setting may call for something else. You know, Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas are both actors I would refer to as charismatic presences in this movie, but in really different ways.
20:09 Stephen Thompson? Yeah, totally.
20:11 Linda Holmes? The thing that makes me love this film is that I think it appreciates a lot of different things about being creative. It's okay to want to make a living. It's okay to want credit. It's okay to want the adulation of a room full of people singing your song. All of those things are normal and fine and good and you don't always get them, but it's okay to want them. I like the way it tries to sort through all that stuff. And even though I started off saying what I thought the film was about, I completely agree with Kristen's take on what it's about also in terms of that it's not really about playing stadiums, or at least it has to be about more than playing stadiums, partly because a vanishingly tiny percentage
20:56 Linda Holmes? of musicians will ever play stadiums. If you're never going to be happy unless you play stadiums, the odds are you're setting yourself up to be miserable and to feel like a failure, which isn't fair to yourself and your own talent. So anyway, boy, I liked this movie a lot.
21:12 Stephen Thompson? Well, I think it's safe to say that all three of us recommend that you see this movie. See it in theaters, see it on streaming, come back to it again and again. Just loved it. That brings us to the end of our show. Kristen Minzer, Linda Holmes, thanks so much for being here.
21:26 Speaker 07 Thank you.
21:27 Linda Holmes? Thank you. I love to see something I like.
21:30 Stephen Thompson? Also, just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio, and you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor-free. So please go find out more at plus.npr.org/happyhour, or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Hafsa Fathama and Mike Katsef, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello Command provides our theme music, which you will also be humming for days. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson, and we will see you all next time.
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