Delayed Reaction: Begin Again

The Pitch: Once with a budget.

I'll say this much. John Carney knows the kind of movie he likes to make. Begin Again is his follow up to Once and it's obvious that they are from the same person. The only difference is the level of polish on Begin Again. It has bigger stars (Oscar nominees Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, and Hailee Steinfeld) all giving incredibly charming performances. It's hard to not fall for Ruffalo as the screwup or Knightley as the "true artist". Even Adam Levine (surprising), James Corden (less surprising), and Catherine Keener (not surprising at all) get good, smaller roles. You could fault this for being overly sweet or presenting an idealized version of New York City. Reviews I came by kept dismissing it as not as good as Once (because Once took them by surprise and this didn't), which is probably true. I fully enjoyed the performances though. The music is great and since that is 90% of the reason for this movie, that pretty much means the movie is great, right? There's plenty of things to be irritated about in this movie, but life's too short to convince myself that I didn't enjoy watching this, tropes and all.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend