PoP! goes the romance

Robert Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News

Published February 14, 2007 at midnight

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Hugh Grant wears failure well. In fact, few know how to wear it better.

In the romantic comedy Music and Lyrics, Grant plays a washed-up rocker who attempts a mini-comeback. He certainly could use one. Grant's Alex Fletcher, a once-popular singer, has been reduced to performing at theme parks and '80s revivals.

Grant can generate a slightly dissipated air that goes especially well with a character who's no longer living the dream; there's something frayed around Grant's otherwise bright edges. He's an actor who sometimes seems one step away from becoming the answer to a trivia question.

An unabashed bit of mid-February fluff, Music and Lyrics effectively teams Grant with Drew Barrymore for a movie that boasts enough clever lines to make it palatable. It's also built around a much-repeated sight gag: Never one to be accused of heavy emotional lifting, Grant finally has found a film in which he can shake his booty.

Grant, who does his own singing and booty shaking, plays a musician who once belonged to the group PoP! His writing partner in PoP! left for a fabulous solo career, leaving Alex to scuffle for leftovers.

As luck (and script contrivance) would have it, Alex receives one more chance at fame. Cora Corman (Haley Bennett), a singing sensation in the Britney Spears mold, asks Alex to write a song for her.

Alex wants to give it a try, but he's not a lyricist. Imagine Alex's delight when he meets Barrymore's Sophie Fisher, a woman who earns her living tending to plants in other people's apartments, but who happens to be a natural-born lyricist.

OK, so Music and Lyrics hasn't got much on its mind besides banter and romance. But Grant excels at this sort of thing, and Barrymore isn't too far behind him. She adapts to the script's cleverness without undue fuss, and comes off as appealing.

Yes, there are tunes. I won't say that Grant and Barrymore make beautiful music together, but you won't be slapping your hands over your ears, either - not unless you object to songs that have a goofy pop quality that may revive memories of certain forgettable '80s groups, if you're unlucky enough to have such recollections.

As it turn out, the script's pivotal conflict involves Cora's treatment of Alex and Sophie's song. It seems Cora, who has fallen under the sway of some sort of mushy New Age spirituality, wants to spice up the ballad and add a steamy beat. Barrymore's Sophie objects: She knows such treatment will drain the song of its sincerity.

The supporting cast is small, but good. Special mention should be made of Kristen Johnston, who plays Sophie's sister, Lucy, a former PoP! fan who still loses her composure around Alex. Brad Garrett has a nice turn as Alex's manager. Campbell Scott turns up briefly in connection with a bit of plotting that's meant to show that Barrymore's character badly needs to regain her confidence.

I doubt whether you'll see a less significant movie than Music and Lyrics this year, and, if you do, I don't want to know about it. But you know what? Music and Lyrics isn't half bad, at least not by light romantic-comedy standards. The movie passes muster as a corny, mildly witty and often bouncy diversion.

What the studios didn't want us to write about

The following film opens today but wasn't screened for critics to review:

DADDY'S LITTLE GIRL

• The stars: Gabrielle Union, Louis Gossett Jr., Idris Elba

• The premise: An attorney falls for a down-on-his-luck janitor who is a single father of three children. But this reverse-Cinderella story gets messy when the janitor's ex-wife shows up and threatens to take away the kids.

• What could be so bad: Actually, here's one film we can't naturally assume the studio is sneaking in the back door because it threatens to stink up the cineplex. Tyler Perry (Diary of a Mad Black Woman) has historically kept critics at bay while making mad money at the box office.

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