Ryan McNeil
When we are searching for the right words to convey what we really feel, we are told to speak from our heart. The words are there, they say – wrapped in warmth, hiding behind vulnerabilities. However, maybe speaking from the heart is more difficult than it seems. Maybe our hearts weren’t designed to speak, so perhaps that function is better served by our heads.
But what about music? Our hearts might not be able to speak, but could they sing? Might that be why the very best songs we ever seem to hear send electricity straight to our hearts? After all, the very best melodies make our emotions swell, those beautiful harmonies lift our spirits, and eventually we find it all turning our very heartbeat into a song all its own.
HEARTS BEAT LOUD is the story of Frank and Sam Fisher (Nick Offerman and Kiersey Clemons).
Frank runs Red Hook Records in Brooklyn – the sort of vinyl shop that’s barely hanging on in an age where retail is moving further and further online. He is a man who loves music, even if he doesn’t always have time for the people wanting to buy music from him. Times are tough for the record peddler though, and when his landlady Leslie (Toni Collette) comes calling, he admits to her that after seventeen years, he will not be renewing his lease.
His daughter Sam, meanwhile, has as much ahead of her as Frank does behind. She will be attending UCLA med school in the fall and is hard at work to make the very most of her opportunity. “Hard at work” though, still allows her time to get out and around during the Brooklyn summer, and during a trip to an art gallery she meets a lovely young lass named Rose (Sasha Lane) and falls hard and fast in love.
In amongst all of this, the father and daughter still have a shared passion for creating music of their own. Their jam sessions and noodling eventually coalesce into something approaching a completed song they title “Hearts Beat Loud”. Sam says her lyrics make no sense, but Frank (rightly) says that seldom matters. Sam believes the work is just a rough sketch, but Frank feels like it’s something far more complete than his daughter cares to admit.
Impulsively, Frank posts the track on Spotify, and soon it’s being included in playlists alongside some big named indie darlings. Frank is ecstatic and wants to take the show on the road. Sam, meanwhile, is damned near mortified, and doesn’t want to indulge her father’s wild notions.
The Red Hook summer wanes on, with life for both father and daughter getting more trying and complicated by the day. While little seems nearly as certain as it was just recently, one thing is certain – the lights will go out at Red Hook Records, but not before this newfound pop duo sing it out in style.
We all experience a relationship with music in our lives. For some it’s spiritual, for some it’s artistic. Some of us use it as the soundtrack to special moments, and a lucky few of us create our own. No matter which of these we are, what’s fascinating is the way our relationship with music changes. One day we can’t live without it, the next we’re forgetting the words to songs we once knew by heart.
It’s like life: one day we are children, the next we are parents. One day we can’t get someone off of our minds, the next we’d give anything to forget them. The music in our life will change, just as our relationships will. However, that doesn’t mean that every change is a change for the worse. Quite the contrary – sometimes we have to let things go to truly understand how much we love them. Or, to bring it back to music – sometimes we need to put the record back on the shelf for a while until a day in the future when we can discover it all over again with new perspective.
HEARTS BEAT LOUD is a timid movie. While its songs are bold and anthemic, the people we meet and the way they navigate their life is very cautious. There is so much anxiety in the eyes of every character: so much self-doubt. There are awkward silences, and painful misgivings. Whether it’s the way Sam holds that last little bit back from Rose, or the way Frank can’t escape the feeling he’s missing another of life’s opportunities – this movie is a bundle of nerves. It’s a reminder that love itself can be timid, even when it is burning most brightly.
The beauty of this is that it makes everything so much more human and so much more tangible. We all want to live like a movie, but few of us are ever that bold and that witty. We might want to belt the chorus, but more often than not, we hum the bridge.
The beautiful contradiction is that the timidness of HEARTS BEAT LOUD make it that much more powerful of a film. It makes one shed tears of joy because we see a beauty in all of that self-doubt…and it makes us feel like there might just be a beauty contained in our own self-doubt.
This is a film about the songs we don’t get to sing in life. Perhaps we couldn’t find the words, perhaps it was out of our vocal range. Perhaps the drums started thumping, the keys started to chime and we just…opened our mouths…and forgot the words. It happens – probably far more often than any of us cares to admit. If we’re lucky, we get a chance to sing our song; to stand in the spotlight, and declare our hearts’ desires full-on. The rest of us aren’t quite so fortunate, but it’s not all bad news.
The rest of us get make smaller contributions; a lick, a lyric, a loop, or a lift. We become fragments of someone else’s songs, our memories preserved in someone else’s melody. These songs might have been written for us, about us, or in spite of us – but they are ours too, they just happen to be sung by our children, our friends, our lovers, and our neighbours.
HEARTS BEAT LOUD wants us to remember the words of the wise troubadour who once said, “All Things Must Pass”. Places we frequent, passions that bring us joy, and even people we profess our deepest love toward. All of it must end eventually. Their passing brings their very presence deeper meaning, and allows them to find their place in the memories we hold dearest in our hearts. As these endings come into our lives it is important that we embrace them with the sweetest sorrow…hoping that after the ache of their absence subsides, we are left with a presence that stays with us far longer than we ever expect.
In order to assure that presence, we must follow Sam and Frank’s lead; we must sing our lungs out as we close the place down.
This sounds really lovely, I hope I get the chance to see it soon.