‘Hearts Beat Loud’ Is a Sweet, Unexpected Stunner with Great Music

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What to Stream This Weekend

MOVIE: Hearts Beat Loud
DIRECTOR: Brett Haley
CAST: Nick Offerman, Kersey Clemons, Ted Danson, Toni Collette, Sasha Lane
AVAILABLE ON: Prime Video iTunes

Through seven seasons of Parks and Recreation, through countless appearances in recent comedies, right up to hosting Making It with Amy Poehler, it feels like we’ve become very comfortable with Nick Offerman. But I guarantee you’re fully not ready for the quiet emotion and character work he does in Hearts Beat Loud, the 2018 indie movie that caught a bit of attention while it played theaters this spring, but not nearly the attention it deserves.

Offerman plays Frank, an aging rock musician and widower whose teenage daughter, Sam (Kiersey Clemons) is almost out of the nest. They’re close — he tries to play the Cool Dad in an affable, and she humors him in a way that clearly shows that she loves him. She’s an aspiring musician, too, but she’s also eager to get out on her own. Frank is hoping that, if nothing else, their shared passion for music will keep Sam close, and when they record a song together and he uploads it to Spotify, where it acquires a bit of attention, he gets enthusiastic about them starting a band together.

Director Brett Haley, who should be on your radar since he directed the Blythe Danner older-woman-starts-over movie I’ll See You in My Dreams (Danner has a small role in Hearts Beat Loud as Offerman’s mother), manages to be both knowing about his characters yet still appreciative and empathetic. The film knows how Brooklyn all of this is and seems to smile indulgently at the aging hipster dad at its center. At the same time, the story centers Sam in a really satisfying way. Clemons has been one of the more interesting and exciting young actresses for a while, and she does a great job playing a teen girl who’s bristling under her father’s expectations but loves him enough not to be a giant brat about it. And you will fully fall in love with her as a musician. We also get a sweet and intimate relationship between Sam and her girlfriend, played by American Honey star Sasha Lane.

I’ll See You in My Dreams so captivated me because it managed to be sweet and generous towards its characters while still allowing them to be selfish and self-interested and weak and human. Nothing about it seemed sanitized, but nothing felt artificially acidic. In the place of ginned-up screenplay-class incidents, we get human relationships that play themselves out. The fantastic supporting cast really helps flesh this out: Toni Collette as a potential love interest for Frank; Ted Danson as a friendly local bartender (it is undeniable how cosmically balancing it is to see Ted Danson tending bar).

Mostly, Hearts Beat Loud is the stuff of which streaming discoveries should be made: a sweet, deeply watchable movie featuring likeable actors, great music, and a human-sized story that will find a way to hit you at one angle or another. Yeah, it’s Brooklyn as hell, with at least one cameo that will make you roll your eyes, but it also builds to an ending that echoes Empire Records, so, like I said: something for everyone.

Where to stream Hearts Beat Loud