THE GREATEST HITS – Review

Here comes another time-traveling fantasy, but with a twist. As the kids on Bandstand used to say to Dick Clark, “It’s a gotta’ good beat. You can dance to it”. Maybe you could even do the twist. That’s because the force to send this story back through the decades isn’t a big machine, like the one H.G. Welles conjured or even the beloved DeLorean that Doc Brown modified. Nor is it hypnosis ala’ SOMEWHERE IN TIME, though the brain is involved along with…the ears. You see the gimmick here is music, specifically certain pop tunes that propel a twenty-something woman into the past. And just what is she doing six or seven years ago? Making “sure bet” investments perhaps? No, she’s trying to save a “lost love”, so this is really a romantic fantasy with a soundtrack that’s this couple’s take on those old “compilations” that were touted as THE GREATEST HITS.

Ths tale’s “traveler” is a lovely twenty-something woman named Harriet (Lucy Boynton) who is haunted by her departed love and spends her nights trying to change his fate. We meet her in her dark, but spacious LA apartment as she prepares for her nightly ritual. After a cocktail or three, she looks at her “mission board” that takes up most of the living room wall. It’s filled with index cards, photos, and bits of art denoting specific years (“2017”, “2020”, etc.). Across from it are stacks of boxes filled with vinyl AKA LP records, each box with a different designation (“safe”, “unused”, etc.). Harriet puts a record on her turntable, gets it spinning, sits on her big comfy chair, and passes out as the world spins about her. She awakens at a concert in the past where she met her love Max (David Corenswet). With different songs, we see flashes of their romance, culminating seconds before a fatal car crash that Harriet can’t prevent. She finally returns to the “now” just in time to put in her earplugs and headphones (so that some background music doesn’t “trigger a trip”) and go to her job at the nearby library (lots of quiet there). From work she drops in to see her BFF, aspiring DJ Morris (Austin Crute), who shares her secret without judgment, though he urges her to “move on” while providing her with access to vintage vinyl. Then it’s off to the grief support group run by the sympathetic Dr. Bartlett (Retta). Then one day, Harriet’s routine is broken by a new addition to the group, the friendly but somewhat sad (he just lost both parents) David (Justin H. Min). They two begin to connect, but will the possibility of a new romance stop Harriet’s “music mission”? And just what will he think of her when she has a “spell” and tries to explain her dives through the decades via timeless tunes?

The role of Harriet seems well suited to Boynton as perhaps part of her “pop music trilogy” with roles in SING STREET and BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY. Aside from her camera-ready looks, she conveys a real passion for the melodies, while also being fearful of being blindsided by a tune that will expose her “gift”. Boynton also expresses a yearning for the past and a need to put up a wall to ward off a new connection. That is her developing kinship with Min as the slightly melancholy David who is also clinging to the past, mainly his takeover of the failing antique shop of his parents. He too needs to step away from the legacy, but Min shows us David’s unease that saps the sparks with Harriet. Corenswet doesn’t really break a sweat (sorry) as the effortlessly cool charismatic “dream guy” forever frozen in happier times. It’s a nice supporting role for him before we see him zooming over Metropolis next year. Crute brings some energy and a bit of snark in the thankless now rom-com cliche gay cheerleader pal of the story’s heroine (though it’s hinted that Morris is probably bisexual). He deserves better. And that goes for the warm compelling Retta who does get a nice speech about grief before she tries to guide Harriet into a healing mode.

Writer/director Ned Benson evokes a bit of the spirit of David Boyle’s YESTERDAY mixed with a very generous amount of John Carney for this love letter to LPs and live music, complete with a nice acting cameo from a celebrated singer. And that word seems to sum up the whole enterprise…nice. Harriet, David, and Max are all very nice people, but aside from Harriet’s music mania, they’re all sort of bland, It’s a surprise after the risks Benson took with his Eleanor Rigby trilogy a few years ago. The LA locations are fairly familiar with opulent apartments that feel like the fantasy digs of a sitcom. Everybody seems to be just drifting along with any concern over “paying their dues”, though David is torn about the family biz. I was pleased that they found an engaging clever way to thwart fate and avoid all the timeline “hoo-hah” of flicks like FREQUENCY (doesn’t hold up to logic, though it’s lotsa’ fun). All the principals are ultra-cool to the point that they never come close to the boiling point of passion, aside from their zeal to grab a rare disc. In the cinema subgenre of time travel fantasies, this trifle wouldn’t have a spot in THE GREATEST HITS.

2 Out of 4

THE GREATEST HITS streams exclusively on Hulu beginning on Friday, April 12, 2024