Begin Again (2013): Keira Knightley Can Sing!

[wlk68]

IMDB Page:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1980929/?ref_=rvi_tt

 

Summary: A chance encounter between a disgraced music-business executive and a young singer-songwriter new to Manhattan turns into a promising collaboration between the two talents.

 

This movie was released for Labor Day weekend here in the US and I saw it for free using the coupon linked below. (AMC Theaters)

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/t31.0-8/10535606_324729251037391_5034877777728763041_o.jpg

 

I loved it. I thought it was cute and sweet and the music (mostly original songs) was excellent. I left the theater humming the tunes and I am so going to buy the sound track. Keira (who has a lovely singing voice) and Mark Ruffalo were great.   

[SallyAlbright]

Oh, I loved this film. Such a sweet little overlooked summer movie. The soundtrack is great and Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, and (surprisingly) Adam Levine were all good. I've been listening to "Lost Stars" for weeks!

[ruby24]

I loved this movie! It left a smile on my face from beginning to end and I loved the songs too. It was just a really enjoyable, feel good movie and I didn't think it was too sentimental at all- just completely genuine and fun. Yeah, loved it.

 

I also loved Keira's wardrobe in this. I'd kill to have all the dresses she wore, lol.

Edited September 1, 2014 by ruby24

[Cranberry]

I watched this today after seeing this thread. I enjoyed it! It was like a love letter to good music and New York. I was worried for a second that Gretta and Dan were going to hook up, and I'm glad they didn't. I liked their relationship just as it was.

 

"Lost Stars" is a good song, yeah (although the lyrics are kind of dumb). I listened to it a couple more times after the movie ended. I'm glad that Gretta didn't get up on stage at the Gramercy and sing it with Dave, although I would have liked to hear a Keira Knightley/Adam Levine duet.

[wlk68]

I was worried for a second that Gretta and Dan were going to hook up, and I'm glad they didn't. I liked their relationship just as it was.

 

Agreed. There were definitely a few times it looked like they were gonna go there and I'm sooo glad they didn't. It would've been...icky.

 

I would have liked to hear a Keira Knightley/Adam Levine duet.

 

Ditto!

[purplemouth]

I saw it last weekend too and loved it. I've been obsessed with the soundtrack all week. Great movie and great music! I can't get the scene where Dan hears the instruments when Gretta's singing in the beginning out of my mind grapes. I'm a sucker for strings!

[ruby24]

I just bought this today and watched it again- still loved it! I hope more people see this, it's such a good little movie.

[shoregirl]

I liked it too. I was excited to see it was from the same director of Once because I loved Once. I didn't like it as much as Once especially the soundtrack but I did think it was a nice little movie. I was impressed with Kiera Knightley in particular.

[ruby24]

Yeah, she was great. So effortless, but in a completely appealing, confident way. She really matched with Mark Ruffalo quite well.

[psychoticstate]

I really loved this movie.  Didn't expect much and had not heard a lot of buzz but it was a great little summer movie with fantastic acting all around.

 

Count me in as a poster who is glad the movie didn't go there with Gretta and Dan.  It made the movie that much more special by NOT having the leads fall in love.

[ruby24]

I loved the soundtrack too- I could listen to it all the time. I would have preferred Lost Stars to win Best Song at the Oscars, honestly. I thought it WAS the best song, although Adam Levine didn't really do it justice on the show. It would have been cool if they could have had Keira sing it in her stripped down version.

[scartact]

I just watched this the other day and I was surprised by how enjoyable the movie was! I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I was initially reluctant to watch that movie, especially given Adam Levine's attachment to it (I have an inexplicable hatred for Levine and his music) and it just seemed to cheesy and blah. But I really enjoyed the performances, and I appreciated that Levine's character didn't have to be exaggerated for conflict.

 

Ruffalo and Knightley had a very lovely rapport with one another and I too liked that we didn't have to see them fall in love and go through the motions; that their connection can just be drawn through their shared love for music, which is pretty powerful in itself. I was absolutely charmed by the scene/montage where they bond over sharing songs with each other.

 

I like how Carney uses music in his films because you can definitely tell he's a musician and he understands the process of creating and recording very well

[ruby24]

Has anyone else checked this out after John Carney's recent comments slamming Keira in the press?

[Wynterwolf]

There was actually a follow up comment by John Carney.  As apologies go, that's a pretty darn good one.  

[GaT]

Wow, that really is a pretty good apology.The question is, did he write it because he means it? Or did he write it because of all the shit he took for saying what he did?

[ruby24]

Oh, I'm sure it's for all the shit he took. The guy brought her up unprompted in at least three different interviews just to slam her, worse each time. It's not like he was drunk when he said this stuff. It was over a period of several days, one of the interviews was about 10 days old, he just didn't mention her by name. Then he was chased off Twitter when it all came to light.

It's a good apology, but I still have no doubt he meant the things he said.

[paramitch]

Although I was a huge, huge fan of "Once," when the movie first started I got really uncomfortable. The performances and situations were SO over the top, so overacted. I almost turned it off. But then -- I thought there was something in Knighley and Ruffalo and their characters.

And perhaps most importantly, as a former New Yorker, this is honestly maybe the first movie EVER that I've seen that really, honestly felt like New York. Not like New York in a movie. Just real New York. New York of taking cars and taxis here and there, and with street life all around, and with that kind of invisible divide of the haves and have-nots (you can't imagine it until you are a middle-class person and then faced with a level of wealth that floors you so completely you realize those people do not even live in the same world you do), everyone kind of in the same boat of subsisting just below a whole other social strata, etc.

This made the movie even more moving for me, that authenticity. I could have told you how easy it is to pass by the limos, or how the air smelled on some of those rooftops. It was real.

On 9/1/2014 at 8:23 PM, Cranberry said:

I watched this today after seeing this thread. I enjoyed it! It was like a love letter to good music and New York. I was worried for a second that Gretta and Dan were going to hook up, and I'm glad they didn't. I liked their relationship just as it was.

"Lost Stars" is a good song, yeah (although the lyrics are kind of dumb). I listened to it a couple more times after the movie ended. I'm glad that Gretta didn't get up on stage at the Gramercy and sing it with Dave, although I would have liked to hear a Keira Knightley/Adam Levine duet.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it, and especially Keira's voice! She has a lovely light pop-alto that's beautifully indie and would never win voice competitions, thank God. I'm a former classical and jazz singer and am so sick of oversingers and only one type of singer being promoted (ugh, melisma). Here, Keira simply gave us some beautiful songs and feelings. Awesome.

The only thing that felt false to me was the (to me) overwritten and overacted "depths" of Mark Ruffalo's character in the beginning. He was unnecessarily nasty to his business partners (by 100x), got drunk, stole out on a bar tab, then got beat up (all in front of his poor little teenaged kid), and just... ugh. He was so over-the-top arrogant, awful and so reprehensible I honestly had trouble keeping the movie going or rooting for him.

On 9/5/2014 at 9:32 PM, purplemouth said:

I saw it last weekend too and loved it. I've been obsessed with the soundtrack all week. Great movie and great music! I can't get the scene where Dan hears the instruments when Gretta's singing in the beginning out of my mind grapes. I'm a sucker for strings!

That was a beautiful moment, and the one that kept me watching despite the fact that I really hated the guy. A beautiful externalization of what it's like to hear music and arrangements in full internally. Really lovely. It probably made the movie for me.

On 3/9/2015 at 6:49 PM, ruby24 said:

I loved the soundtrack too- I could listen to it all the time. I would have preferred Lost Stars to win Best Song at the Oscars, honestly. I thought it WAS the best song, although Adam Levine didn't really do it justice on the show. It would have been cool if they could have had Keira sing it in her stripped down version.

I totally agree. The soundtrack was lovely, and I especially love when the songs contribute to our understanding of the characters, and it did so in both cases here. My single favorite moment was the lovely understated kiss-off from Keira ("Like a Fool") which the arrogant ex-boyfriend singer thought was a reconnection/love song(!). I have almost been in this exact position so this was extra-glorious.

Oh, you sweet boys in bands. (Bless their little hearts.) Pray you never meet them.

17 hours ago, Wynterwolf said:

There was actually a follow up comment by John Carney.  As apologies go, that's a pretty darn good one.  

That's a fantastic apology.

Aaaand... I'm sorry to say it was much-deserved. He was really unfortunate in his original comments. And it also smacks of a particular sexism that really bothers me. He's also said some choice things about other former collaborators (Glen Hansard, etc.) then walked back. He seems generally both wonderful, talented, and yet perhaps difficult to work with.

Ultimately it was interesting for me. I loved "Once" right away. Here, I hated it (seriously) through nearly the 30-minute mark, but then it was love all the way once Ruffalo's character wasn't cursing out or pissing on every other person he met.

Lastly, I was glad they didn't get together. It never felt romantic to me. Even the aborted visit to her apartment simply felt like one of those "oh thank God I didn't act on that" moments. They still had a lovely and important connection. Sex had nothing to do with it.

Edited June 2, 2016 by paramitch

[MisterGlass]

On 6/2/2016 at 3:59 PM, paramitch said:

Here, I hated it (seriously) through nearly the 30-minute mark, but then it was love all the way once Ruffalo's character wasn't cursing out or pissing on every other person he met.

I saw this recently on Netflix and had a similar reaction.  I didn't hate it, but I can't take a whole movie of a character this obnoxious.  I'm glad I hung on until he settled down, because this is a good, low-key, pleasant movie on balance.  The later explanation of why he went off the deep end did a little to improve my opinion of him, and by the end I liked him well enough.  I was happy for him to have a good ending.

The relationship between Dan and Gretta was worth the watch.  They bonded, helped each other, and didn't get together.  Like posters above, I'm glad it didn't go in that direction when it looked like it might.  On balance I don't have an issue with May/December (I suppose more like May/September here), but this was not the place for it.

The interactions between the characters are the best part of the movie.  They don't feel staged or forced, and they are messy when it makes sense for them to be messy.  They feel like human beings, and it was nice to watch something where the fate of the world didn't hang in the balance.

[stlbf]

I can actually say that my mother(60 something), my niece (23) and myself (old enough to have a 23 year old niece!) watched it together one night and we loved it. Even the cursing didn't annoy my mom that badly. 

Not a bad little movie. James Cordon was funny as hell in his part. Levine didn't make me hate him. Keira Knightly was pretty good in this role. Ruffalo was also good. Thought his asshole heavy extended entrance was bad choice. But he was good. And I actually liked his wife and the lost in angst teen daughter.